Fallen From Grace
by Echo Alexia
Summary: The Reapers were vanguards of destruction, the end of all life. A convenient myth created by Commander Shepard and her criminal allies. A Spectre declared unstable, rogue, and then dead. Except to those who know the truth, and remember what it cost them. Written before ME3. To never be continued :c
1. Through Shoals of Dust

Prologue

Through Shoals of Dust

Rael'Reegar nar Neema vas Moreh never considered himself to anything more than an ordinary citizen of Rannoch. What he had trouble reminding himself was the very fact that he'd been raised on Rannoch made him unordinary.

His people had spent three hundred years wandering the stars, driven from their homeworld by the geth. At least, that was what they'd been taught. The truth, as Zaal'Koris put it, was far more depressing.

After creating the geth, a race of networked synthetics, the race became sentient, and fearful of an uprising the quarians had tried to shut them down. The resulting Morning War, as it was now known, cost countless lives, all for nothing.

The geth had never been planning an attack. They protected themselves from the assault and, confused, began building their own future while they waited for their masters to return.

And they had returned after three hundred years, led by Rael's mother and her best friend: Commander Shepard. The quarians had been preparing for a war to retake the home world. The Conclave, their government, had approved it. Their Migrant Fleet had readied for it. And the Admiralty Board had overruled it.

It was the fifth time in the history of the flotilla the Admiralty Board had overruled the Conclave. It was also the reason his mother was no longer part of it. It was a story his father, Kal'Reegar, loved retelling. His mother had been nominated to take his grandfather's (Rael'Zorah, for whom he was named) place on the Admiralty Board. And she had done so, only to resign the post within the same year.

While the Conclave had been ready to go to war, the Admiralty Board had insisted, unanimously, that a war would be unnecessary. Rannoch was waiting for them, and they had only to go home. It had been unprecedented, monumental, historical, and according to many: completely mad.

The Admiralty Board had only the word of Commander Shepard and a mobile geth platform that went by the alias 'Legion.' Their word proved to be true. The fleet had landed on Rannoch only to be welcomed timidly home. Most of the geth had left to take their place in a Dyson Sphere in one of the solar systems in the Perseus Veil. Those that stayed had split, and became a new faction known as the Legion, who wished to live side-by-side with their former masters.

All of this was history to Rael'Reegar. He had been born on the Neema, raised on Rannoch, and joined the Moreh after his Pilgrimage. Before he was born, the quarians had needed to go on pilgrimage to support the Migrant Fleet, and while they continued to take care of what ships remained after the Reaper War, it was no longer necessary for their survival.

It was, however, necessary if they wanted to maintain their fleet and remain one of the major powers on the Citadel. That, to Rael, was what was current, and what was important. As the first quarian Spectre, he guessed it was no surprise.

After their role in the Reaper War, the quarians had pushed for and been granted their old embassy on the Citadel, and then continued to push for a seat on the Council. The embassy was granted almost without delay. Everyone remembered the countless heroics of the Migrant Fleet and their willingness to evacuate planets ravaged by the Reapers. Except for Rael, who hadn't been born yet, and then as the war continued, had been too young.

After his role in the Migrant Marines during the Second Heretic War, alongside the Legion and his fellow quarians, Rael had been presented with several others to the Council to be reviewed as a potential Spectre. He had no doubt that his parents, who were both known as heroes throughout the galaxy, were part of the reason he'd been accepted.

It hadn't bothered him. What did bother him was having to wear his envirosuit whenever he was off Rannoch, on missions for the Council. Still, if that was the only price he had to pay to get his people a seat at the heart of galactic government he would have worn an envirosuit for the rest of his life. As history and his parents told him, it was what quarians used to do anyway.

Rael rolled his shoulder in his armor and tugged on the buckle across his chest. The Spectre symbol glittered along with his other metals, the only decorative parts of his otherwise mottled black and gray gear. The older quarians, and some of the more recent generations, decorated their envirosuits with scarves and patterned wraps to help identify and express themselves. Rael knew who he was. He didn't need his suit to tell him.

What he would have liked was for his suit to help cool him down. Intai'sei was a desert: hot and uncomfortable. He had built in climate control, but there was only so much it could do before the draw backs of a full bodysuit of heavy armor began to take its toll.

He could have come in his suit alone, without his armor, but he was more cautious than that. It wasn't that he didn't trust humans. He could have landed at Thoreau Mesa suit free and would have trusted them to take him to a clinic when he passed out from infection. Rael liked humans. Especially their Councilor, Gianna Parasini, who had taken over after the late Donnel Udina had died of a broken neck. (C-Sec never found the culprit, though there were whispers that they didn't try very hard.)

No, Rael liked and trusted humans. What he didn't trust was walking into a combat zone unprepared, which this mission might very well turn out to be.

The very fact that he wasn't sure what to expect was proof that it was his first mission not given to him by the Council or the Migrant Fleet; it was something Rael had chosen to do on his own. He'd heard the whispers, the rumors of a coming war that could change the face of the galaxy forever.

So soon after the Reaper War, Rael knew the Council wouldn't take him seriously. His own parents struggled to take him seriously, but all his leads and searching pointed towards the same conclusion. War was coming, and the galaxy wasn't ready for it. They were still coming off the battle-high of the Reaper War, fleets of nearly every Council race weren't half of what they used to be. The Council races weren't half of what they used to be.

They'd lost countless heroes, names whispered reverently like prayers. And Commander Shepard's was at the top.

Her death had stirred the Council races, and it had stirred their enemies. They watched the war from a distance, and while the Council races suffered, they had bided their time. Rael knew what they planned to unleash, and he knew in his heart Commander Shepard was the only one who could stop them.

He also knew what so few others did. That Commander Shepard had never really died. What he didn't know what was whether she'd be willing to come out of retirement (or what someone like that considered retirement) to help him. His mother had insisted that no, she would not.

"You said she'd do anything for you." Rael had been confused.

"She would…" His mother had wrung her hands together, her nervous habit when she was anxious, "For me. Not the galaxy, Rael."

"They're the same thing." Rael had insisted. If he'd learned anything from his people, it was their sense of honor and self-sacrifice. Helping the Fleet and the Home-world helped all who dwelled on them. "Saving the galaxy saves you, too."

"She doesn't see it that way, son," Tali sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder and giving him a light squeeze. His mother was touchy. His father said it came from living so long without being able to touch. "Not anymore. Not after-… not anymore."

"But she is alive?" He'd pressed. "And on Intai'sei?"

Tali smiled, and looked distance for several seconds before she laughed. "As if Shepard could die."

So here he was, his aircar on autopilot, tugging at his sticky armor, waiting to reach a manor nestled in the middle of a desert on a planet with less than three hundred thousand people. Trying to find a legend, and convince it to come out of hiding.

Rael couldn't understand how someone could resign their position and abandon their people, but history told him it was common with humans. Jon Grissom had done it, and now Shepard was doing it. She'd taken on a new name, a new life, a new planet, but Rael prayed to the ancestors she was still the same person, willing to take on the impossible.

Ideally, he would have brought his mother along, a member of Shepard's old squad to help persuade her. But she was a member of the Conclave now, and she had more important things to do than help him on his missions, especially ones she didn't believe in.

"I haven't exactly brought it before the Council yet…" Rael had explained when he'd been talking to his parents.

"Good," Tali snapped, folding her arms across her chest. "Those idiots won't have anything to do with a rogue Spectre they've declared dead twice, no matter how many times she's saved them."

Rael tried not to cringe. His mother was a passionate person. He'd heard her speak the same way about it the Conclave now and again, and for the most part tried to ignore it. It was difficult, considering he believed in the Conclave and the Council. Tali noticed and sighed. Living so long among humans had made his mother alarmingly perceptive. "I'll tell you what they told Shepard. If this is what you think you need to do, then do it. You're a Spectre now," She smiled with pride, like she always did when she said it, hypocritically to her thoughts on the Council, and pinched his cheek like she did when he was a boy, "You don't have to ask your mother for permission."

The aircar slowed to a stop as it reached the lone house in the desert. One of the new model X75 Makos was parked outside. A glass window made the walls of the second story. The sunlight hit it and reflected out blindingly at anyone trying to approach, which Rael guessed was Shepard's intention.

Seconds after he'd climbed out of his car, savage barks and howls filled the air. Varren. She kept pet varren? Rael almost flung himself back into his car, when he realized they were chained and pinned in just out of reach of the door, but close enough to be intimidating.

There was no hiding his presence now. Rael took a deep breath, air sterile and filtered through his envirosuit. He could only hope she was the same person, or would listen to reason. If not… he'd have to find someone who would make her.

* * *

**AN**: An idea I've had for a while. A Garrus/Shepard romance, taking place twenty-some-odd years in the future, when the Reaper Wars are over, and the galaxy is under a new threat. Read and review, continued if someone is interested :3


	2. N7 Alliance Marine

Chapter One

N7 Alliance Marine

Damn fishdogs, Kai cursed as he always did when they started barking. He was in the training in room, and he could hear them as clearly as if he was outside. That was the point, but it was grating. Their howls and slathering were unnatural, just like the beasts themselves, who he saw as no better than vermin. They were nothing like loyal Earth-bred hounds, but Shepard insisted on keeping them.

The house had been designed to funnel sounds from outside. It was an effective alarm system that couldn't be hacked, but Kai knew that wasn't why she kept them, it was why he let her.

They were all bred from a fishdog she used to keep around. Urz, he remember its name and wished he didn't. When the old leader of Tuchanka had given it to her as a gift, it hadn't left her side until it died. Kai had been foolish to think that just because it was dead didn't mean it couldn't still make his life miserable.

Kai dialed the gravity control of the training room down from two-hundred percent back to one standard G. Wiping himself free of the grime of his workout, he listened to the fishdogs. Their barks and howls were concentrated at a single source; there was no indication they were fighting among themselves again. Kai picked up his knife and pistol from where he kept them by the entrance. No one came here… and left.

Kai made his way to the side entrance that led out to the varren pit. The front door was a façade; it led to nowhere. No one could enter unless they went through the beasts, and the only person they wouldn't attack on sight was Kai. Pressing himself into the shadows of their pin, ignoring the stench, he circled the house and assessed the threat.

A single aircar was parked in plain sight out front, and a quarian was warily eying the pit of varren and trying to inch his way towards the front door. He didn't see Kai, of course, but then, how could he? Kai had been Cerberus's top wetwork agent for years, and an N7 marine before then. If he was being seen, it was because he wanted someone to see him.

The quarian was in full body armor; Kai hadn't even bothered to put a shirt on. That didn't mean he didn't have kinetic barriers; his belt was a shield harness, one of the best. He checked the combat scanner on his pistol and did a quick body count. It registered the varren, Kai, and the quarian. The gypsy didn't even have back up.

The quarian's faceplate darted about, taking in the varren, the door, the house. He hadn't even cased the place. Just a beggar come to beg.

Disgusted, Kai climbed out of the pit and circled around behind the quarian just as the man reached for the doorbell. The quarian sensed his presence a second too late, and as he was turning and drawing his pistol, Kai cut the cords to his air filter with his knife. He twisted behind the gypsy, grabbed the cords, and strangled him with them.

The quarian struggled, predictably. He was strong, doubtless a veteran of some war who thought he could beg alms from the richest person on Intai'sei. The quarian surged backwards, smashing Kai into the wall. He grunted, but held on tight. The quarian didn't have much room to move, too far left or right and he'd be fishdog food.

His three-finger hands clamored for a stunner on his belt and managed to grasp it. Kai pushed off the wall and sent them both crashing to the ground, knocking the stunner free. It skidded along the dirt and toppled into the varren pit, where it was immediately devoured. The beasts took the resulting shocks as if they tickled and little else.

The gypsy faked passing out, and Kai kept his grip tight until his body stilled for real. Only then did he let go, realign the air filters, and let the suit's seals clamp over the breach. The gypsy beggar would wake up with a headache and an infection, if Kai let him wake up.

Turning the body over, Kai cursed almost immediately. A Spectre. Not just any Spectre: the only qaurian Spectre. If the Council had sent him here that meant they knew about Shepard. And if he didn't report back, they'd send more Spectres to investigate. The next ones could be humans.

With a growl and a sigh, he hefted the body over his shoulder and make his way back through the pits inside, calling the varren off as he went.

When he was back inside, Kai took the Spectre to the training room, which he felt doubled nicely as an interrogation chamber. Kai dialed the gravity up to two hundred percent of normal, and then stripped the alien of his armor and weapons, leaving the quarian in his envirosuit. Grabbing restraints from the front of the room, he tied his arms and chest to the pommel horse and his feet together.

Kai sighed. Maybe the boy was only here to investigate the Gunns, but somehow Kai doubted it. The Gunns were untouchable. Cleaners of the galaxy, mercenary leaders with enough wealth and power to make the late Donovan Hock green with envy. Or, Kai mused, red with rage, since they'd gained a lot of their influence assimilating his collapsed empire. A Spectre wouldn't have come straight to their home to take them down. He'd have hit the heart of their power out in the Terminus.

Interrogating Spectres, eliminating rogue Cerberus experiments, fighting in the Reaper Wars… Kai settled down to wait. No one called on an N7 for an easy job.

He had been prepared for a lot of things when the Illusive Man had given him to Shepard, not the first of which was death, or to be sent away. He trusted Cerberus, and by extension the Illusive Man, but not for the first time he didn't understand them.

As the Illusive Man had explained it, Kai was a peace-offering, to assure Shepard's continued support. The Illusive Man would be too busy rebuilding the empire to assign Kai regular wetwork. With Shepard, he'd smiled his humorless smile, Kai would never run out.

Kai didn't know how the Illusive Man had known that adding a member to Shepard's ground team would secure her loyalty, but throughout the Reaper Wars, he'd come to understand. Shepard was loyal to her team, and her team was loyal to her. As the asari whore had said, her choices were their choices, her wishes were their wishes. The Illusive Man, and now Kai, saw that it went both ways.

Shepard had her own plans, but she would never stray too far from what her team approved of. That had been enough for the Illusive Man, with Lawson, Taylor, Chambers, and other Cerberus agents to subtly steer her along the right path. But everyone in the Lazarus Project had been compromised. They no longer remembered any loyalty other than Shepard.

When Kai Leng had joined her team, he'd been completely and utterly devoted to Cerberus. Shepard wouldn't go directly against them as long as he was there.

Kai had reported to the Illusive Man, kept Shepard fighting the Reapers and not Cerberus. It had worked. The Reapers had been defeated. After everything the Illusive Man had worked to accomplish, the war was finally over. But not before Kai had been compromised, too.

He didn't know when, or even how it had happened. But when Shepard turned against the Illusive Man, Kai Leng had all but let her. He told himself it was because she wasn't really against Cerberus, perhaps because that was what Shepard had told him. It was no wonder to him the Reapers had fallen. Shepard's indoctrination was far stronger.

She'd sent him to take care of Councilor Udina, a Cerberus agent that Shepard claimed had gone rogue, but that Kai knew was as loyal as he was. Kai killed him anyway. The Illusive Man had approved it. They'd planned for Charles Saracino to take his place, a Terra Firma Parliament member who owed Shepard a favor and Cerberus his life.

It hadn't happened. While Kai was on the job, Shepard and her other token assassin had killed the Illusive Man. And let Miranda Lawson take his place. Kai had called to report in, and Miranda had appeared on the screen. As soon as he realized he'd been played, he'd expected to die with the Illusive Man. He waited for Krios to fall from the ceiling, planning to take the lizard to hell with him.

It hadn't happened. Shepard had stepped onto the holo and explained how humanity no longer needed an illusive man, they needed a loyalist. And hell take them all, Kai believed her.

And now… and now Kai felt like he was betraying her. But that didn't matter. His loyalty was to Cerberus, no matter the leader. It always had been and always would be. Miranda had been perfectly clear. This house was his job now. He made sure no one came in… and no one came out.

"Keelah…" Rael moaned. He had a migraine so fierce that felt like his head was going to explode out of his suit. He could barely lift his head, or any part of his body. He felt like he weighed twice what he should have.

"Good morning." Rael blinked groggily. His vision came into focus on a human man. He had no shirt on, revealing tan muscled skin covered in scars. His dark hair had no hint of gray, and the almond eyes that watched him were anything but kind. Then again, Rael's reception could have told him that.

"Solomon Gunn?" Rael groaned. At least he'd made it inside. His mother had told him that would be the hardest part.

"A pleasure." He man tilted his head, revealing part of the ouroboros tattoo of a snake devouring itself on the back of his neck. It wasn't an idle greeting. Solomon had tilted it towards a suit of armor: Rael's armor. "What can I do for you?"

_You can untie me_, Rael thought, "I'm here to see Allison Gunn," He said instead, getting to the point. None of Rael's Spectre missions were designed for subtly or stealth. In that respect, he took after his father.

"My wife is indisposed at the moment," Solomon said with a hint of a leer in his voice. Humans could imply all sorts of things with the tone of their voice but his mother insisted that wasn't always what you should focus on. Their eyes were the heart of their expression and the most subtle.

With what he'd hinted, Solomon's eyes should have glazed with the memory of his time with his wife. They did no such thing. They were cold, calculating, and utterly in the moment. Shepard wasn't busy or away; she just didn't even know he was here.

"I need to see her. She knows me," A white lie, she knew his parents, "I am Rael'Reegar nar Neema vas Moreh."

"You're nar Tasi vas Nedas to me, boy," Child of no one, crew of nowhere. Rael bristled at the insult, reserved only for exiles, before he realized how much Solomon had to know about quarian culture to use it. Why would a mercenary leader know anything about quarian culture? "Allison doesn't know any gypsies, and I told you, she's indisposed."

"This is important," Rael insisted. "You have to have heard of me. First quarian Spectre, son of Tali'Zorah and Rael'Reegar. Allison knows my parents, from the Reaper Wars and before."

"Geth Wars," Solomon corrected him.

"What?" Rael blinked.

"The Geth Wars," His captor repeated, "The Reapers are a myth."

Rael bristled. This bosh'tet couldn't really be married to Commander Shepard, could he? "They were real. Everyone knows it. Allison knows it. Anyone who says otherwise knows it; they just can't admit they were wrong when the truth was right in front of them for so long."

"That speaker you call a mouth is going to get you into trouble, boy." Solomon threatened him, not a hard thing to do when he was bound, unarmed and unarmored, but Rael ignored the threat and focused on his eyes. They glistened with bemusement beneath the glare. Solomon knew the Reapers were real, he was just pretending not to. Why?

"It already has," Rael pointed out, flexing against his bonds, "But I'm here on Council business. By their authority, you have to let me see her."

"No I don't." Solomon twisted a knife in his hand, rolling it from finger to finger. His eyes were empty. It wasn't a threat then, just an idle habit. "If you were really here on orders from the Council, you'd have said so first, but you spoke personally instead, which means this is personal."

"I'm still a Spectre," Rael insisted.

"You're a boy." Solomon got up and walked behind him, outside his field of vision. Rael struggled futilely against his bonds, but movement was all but impossible. Why did he feel so heavy? "Come back when you're a man." Everything blacked out.

When Rael woke up, he was on his back in his car. The skyscrapers of Intai'sei's capital of Thoreau Mesa towered above him. His head was killing him, but when he pushed himself upright, his limbs were no longer heavy and finally decided to obey him.

His armor and weapons were neatly arranged in the passenger's seat. His aircar had been set to autopilot to take him back to the capital, and a message blinked on the car's comm. Groaning, Rael pressed play and massaged his neck through his suit. "Better yet," Solomon's voice filled the car, "Don't come back at all."

"End of message." The aircar's VI announced pleasantly. Rael fell back into his seat. Why hadn't Solomon killed him? He wasn't naïve enough to think that his Spectre status had saved him. He'd seen the look in Solomon's eyes, the man was a killer through and through. Something had stopped him.

The only other information Rael had given him was his name. Had Shepard told Solomon about Rael's parents? Was that what had saved him? If she had, and it was, it still didn't make sense. Why wouldn't he let him see Shepard?

Rael sighed. It had taken him ages to find Commander Shepard, living as Allison Gunn on Intai'sei. Mostly because he couldn't go through the Shadow Broker for his information; he had to go off his mother and independent information brokers.

Well, his first plan had failed. He wasn't getting in to see Shepard on his own. He'd have to find someone Solomon couldn't refuse. Or someone to take Shepard's place in the coming war. He knew someone who might be able to do both.

Rael set his aircar to take him to the spaceport. It was time to find another legend.

* * *

**AN**: Kai Leng, playing the role of Solomon Gunn in this chapter, is from the novel Mass Effect: Retribution, and it is my dearest hope he actually is a party member in Mass Effect 3. If you haven't read it (why on earth not?), don't worry, I'll pretty much tell you all you need to know about him for this story, though I'll probably ruin his character trying. Thanks for reading!


	3. Into Scope

Chapter Two

Into Scope

Rael did not like the Terminus Systems. They were lawless, violent, honorless… and the man he was looking for was in the heart of it all. They were planning a war, but Rael had no solid proof outside of a feeling he'd gathered from Council missions and information brokers. He felt like he was walking across a battlefield, with all the soldiers frozen in place. At any second they'd unfreeze, and the war would come crashing down around him.

He wondered if Commander Shepard had felt this way before the Reapers, knowing war was coming and being the only one who saw it. It wasn't exactly a fair comparison, Rael knew. Even if they lost this war, there would still be life in the galaxy, just this kind of life.

A batarian bumped into him and snarled, shoving Rael to the side. The race had a recent grudge against quarians for regaining their embassy. And the other embassy races had a grudge against quarians for being allowed a Spectre, which everyone knew led to a seat on the Council. Rael dusted himself off and kept walking, trying to keep his head down. He was just glad he was going to meet a turian.

He kept his filters on, making sure he couldn't smell anything. Rael did not want to smell Invictus. Rael did not even want to be on Invictus. Batarians. Lytheni salarians. Clanless turians. To Rael, Invictus was worse than Omega. On Omega, he knew what to expect. Corruption and decadence marred every spirit; no one was innocent. On Invictus, innocents and criminals lived side-by-side, and made it impossible to tell which was which. At least, inside the cities it was impossible. If they were outside the cities, the odds were against them.

Pirates and slavers hid in the jungles, away Invictus law enforcement. Or they had, until Archangel had arrived, and started regular raids against them. He lived on Invictus, sometimes Omega, sometimes somewhere else, always in the Terminus. Always trying to clean it up.

Rael was willing to admit it was why he hadn't gone to him first. Not only was he harder to find, because he wouldn't stay still, he was in the worst part of the galaxy. Rael jumped out of the way of a Lytheni salarian who came skittering by and tugged uncomfortably at his suit. All of the cities had to be outside the jungle to keep the disease-ridden insects and wildlife at bay. Which meant Rael was in a desert. Again.

He was sweating by the time he reached the building he was looking for. To the untrained eye, it was an apartment complex. To Rael, it was a kill zone. The first story had no windows, and every other story had only gun-slits. There were no balconies, no railings, nothing for any infiltrators to climb. The entrance was a narrow hallway, which meant anyone assaulting the place would be forced to enter two at a time.

Rael made his way through the hall feeling uneasy and watched, and emerged into the complex's courtyard: another kill zone. The first story had no entrances and the stairs to the second only descended when someone activated them. At the moment, the courtyard was clustered with people coming and going up and down the stairs, through the hallways, packing transports and loading cars. They were preparing for a raid on the jungle then.

Rael made his best efforts to blend in, but must have looked too inconspicuous, because someone grabbed him and pulled him aside. "Kenn?" A female turian with blue face-paint asked. She had a white carapace and striking eyes a shade brighter than her face-paint.

Rael nodded. He had no idea who Kenn was, but sent him a silent thanks they were wearing the same model armor. "Come on," The turian grabbed his wrist and dragged him up the stairs, talking the entire time. "You're late, we've been waiting on you. We need you to rig the couplings on the infantry to transfer power from the kinetic barriers to the mass accelerator canons. We found out the base has anti-vehicle mines, so we'll have to go a ways on foot and we need the extra firepower for cover before we can disable the-," She spoke so fast that Rael's head began to spin. Not that he wasn't used to receiving fast orders, being a marine, but his tech-skills were laughable (much to his mother's disappointment) and he had no idea what she was talking about.

The woman pulled him into what looked like a war-room. A hologram of a base spun slowly over a table in the center of the room. Terminals lined the walls, and turians and a few other races were looking over datapads or checking their weapons. Except the one in the center, who was clicking through the hologram with a single chipped talon.

Rael hadn't known what to expect from the legendary Archangel. His mother had given him more than enough advice, one-sided as it may have been. "Garrus? He's a carapace-covered marshmallow, who needs to learn when to shut his bosh'tet mouth."

"Good man," was all his father had to say.

The turian in front of him in no way looked like he was made of marshmallows, nor did he look like a good man.

The right side of his face was horribly and permanently disfigured. Rael doubted even the best plastic surgeons could have helped him. The aural implants of his translator showed around through his carapace. The mangled navy scar tissue glittered with cybernetics, and the spur was broken in half, never to grow back.

The left side was covered with a visor, interface scrolling readouts too fast and small for Rael to see. The slant of his visor made him seem as if he was permanently glaring, and the right side of his face seemed to have limited movement.

The effect was a menacing tower of scars and cybernetics, dressed in heavy gray and navy armor. Archangel indeed.

The woman who'd led Rael up here went over to touch him on the shoulder and draw him out of his calibrations. Physical contact was rare for turians, and Rael thought Garrus didn't have a mate. Maybe he was wrong; they had the same face-paint.

"Garrus, I found Kenn." The woman announced happily. Archangel's piercing blue eyes settled on him, and his face twisted into a glare.

"That's not Kenn, Sol." Before Archangel had even finished the sentence, every gun in the room was trained on him. Rael swallowed. Well, at least he'd made it inside. Again.

"I'm Rael'Reegar nar Neema vas Moreh, son of Tali'Zorah and Kal'Reegar." Rael explained, tugging on the belt across his chest that bore his Spectre symbol. No one moved. No one even flinched. Rael realized he could have been a Spectre, a Councilor… it wouldn't have mattered. Until Archangel said so, he was no one. _Nar Tasi vas Nedas_, Solomon's words rang in his head.

"You look like your father, Rael" Archangel chuckled. Everyone relaxed and turned back to what they were doing, except Sol, who slapped him.

"Garrus!" She hissed at the politically incorrect joke. Rael got the feeling Sol was the only one who could have hit Archangel and lived to talk about it. He also got the feeling she didn't know that.

Rael had trouble believing that someone like that would just take him by his word, but no one had scanned him to prove he was who he said he was. Unless Archangel had scanned him. Could his visor do that? The thought made Rael more nervous than he already was.

"What can I do for you?" Archangel asked, calling Rael back to himself.

"I need your help with Shepard," Rael said simply. He must have said the wrong thing. Everyone in the room froze again, glanced at him, then Archangel, then fled to escape the blast from the fuse Rael didn't even know how he'd lit. Some subtly, some not-so-subtly.

"Shepard's dead." His voice was as flat as a flanging voice could be.

"So everyone keeps telling me," Rael frowned. Even though he was a Spectre, sometimes Rael felt like everyone still treated him like a child. He wished they could skip the part where they assumed he didn't know anything.

"Don't speak ill of the dead," Sol interrupted, adding a much less menacing glare to her male counterpart. "Especially Shepard," She shook the glare away to stare warmly at Archangel. It was a platonic look, Rael realized. Maybe they were siblings. "She brought our family back together."

"She's not dead!" Rael snapped. He was hot, tired, and annoyed. Why didn't anyone believe him? About anything? "Look, can we just skip this part? Mom already told me, you don't have to pretend you don't know." Blank stares. That didn't make sense. Unless… unless they really didn't know Shepard was alive.

"Sol, can you tell Gavorn to lead this one?" Garrus finally broke the awkward silence, his voice and face completely unreadable to Rael, who usually prided himself on being able to read people. "I need to make a call."

"You don't really think-…" She trailed off, staring at his face. "Alright, I'll tell Gavorn." She turned on her heel, casting Rael a glare as she left the room. He'd lied about being Kenn; she probably thought he was lying about this too.

Rael realized he was wringing his hands together and quickly slapped them behind his back. Archangel was staring at him with an intensity that made him nervous. "Who else knows?" He didn't even bother asking if it was true. It was like he saw right through him.

"I don't know, I thought that you of all people-"

"Call Tali," Garrus interrupted him. He tapped briefly at his omnitool and the hologram of the base vanished from the table, replaced with a generic terminal Rael could make a call on...

If he knew why. "What? Why?"

"You have Spectre clearance for priority bandwidth." Archangel stepped around the table to stand next to him. It was so he could be on the screen after Rael made the call, but keelah if it wasn't intimidating. "Call your mother."

Rael knew he had to convince Garrus Vakarian Shepard was alive if he wanted his help. Logically, the easiest way to do so would be to have his mother confirm his words. But logic, in the face a terrifyingly calm legend, was of little use. So he accessed the terminal and used his Spectre clearance to make a call to Rannoch, then stepped aside when Archangel took his place in front of the screen.

"Garrus." Tali's voice filled the room. "To what do I owe the displeasure?" She teased.

"Explain." Garrus wrapped his talons around the table to keep from shaking. He was livid. He was beyond livid. As Jack would have said, he was fucking pissed.

"Explain what?" Tali sounded and looked confused. Any other day, he would have thought about how strange it still was to see her without her mask. Any day but today.

"Why your son thinks Shepard is still alive." His talons screeched across the table and he saw Tali and Rael wince at the sound.

"Rael? What are you doing on Invictus?" Tali tilted her head and Rael inched over so the terminal could register him.

"Hi Mother," Rael waved sheepishly, "I couldn't get in to see Shepard, so I came here."

"You shouldn't have," Tali frowned at her son and ignored Garrus's demand. "Garrus has important work to do."

"This is important," Rael insisted, it sounded like something they argued about often. "I need his help, and he needed to call you. You helped me before-"

"Because I thought you would give up!" Tali snapped. Rael shrunk back. He looked crushed.

"Is it true or not?" Garrus growled. Tali's son didn't seem like he had it in him to lie convincingly. His scanner agreed, and showed all the boy's readings at normal, but it had to be a cruel, twisted lie.

Shepard had died in the war. He'd been at her side the entire time. He remembered everything… everything but her last moments. There was no way she could have survived. Cerberus wasn't going to bring her back a second time, even with Lawson leading them.

Saleon, Sidonis, Solona. Shepard had taken all the broken pieces of his life and put them back together. He'd moved on, made peace.

"I-" Tali hesitated. She was a terrible liar, at least to her friends.

"You knew." Shepard was alive. Again. She'd died twice, and came back twice. Maybe she had never really died the second time. Maybe she'd been alive all this time, all these years, and Tali had known, and never told him.

"Garrus, you have to understand-"

"No. I don't." He felt like he was choking on his own rage. He'd only been this angry once before, with Sidonis. "Who else knows?" Shepard was alive. And she'd let him think she was dead. Two decades… "Who else knew?"

"Garrus-"

"Lawson?"

"Yes."

"Liara?"

"Yes."

"Who else knew!"

"Everyone Garrus," Tali whispered sadly, staggering him. He was so furious he was panting. "Everyone knew. Everyone but you and Thane. She said you wouldn't understand-"

"You're damn right I don't understand," If Thane were still alive, Garrus doubted he would have either. "Why just us? Why the hell did she let us think she was dead? How is she not?"

"I'm not… I don't… Garrus, I wasn't there at the end. She just made us swear not to contact her. I thought Kai would be enough to persuade Rael to give up." She cast an apologetic glance at her son over his shoulder. Garrus barely noticed.

"Leng?" Garrus stiffened. The xenophobic ass had seemed like the Illusive Man mocking them all, giving them an assassin to replace the one they all knew was going to die. "What is she doing with the Cerberus assassin?"

"She's with the Cerberus assassin. They're married, Garrus." It was like a blow to the gut. A sucker punch that came out of nowhere, worse than the ones Shepard used to give reporters. Shepard was his best friend; she could marry whoever she wanted. It shouldn't have shaken him as much as it did. Maybe it was just because of who she'd chosen to marry. "They want to be left alone. Garrus, we swore-"

"I didn't." Garrus cut the call and turned around, clenching the table with his hands. He was seeing spots. He took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. There had to be a reason. She wouldn't have just vanished to live an early retirement. She'd come back from the dead to find him again, for fuck's sake.

What if there wasn't a reason? Was this what Williams had felt like on Horizon? Suddenly her reaction didn't seem so illogical. Garrus shook himself. Twenty years. Was this what it was always going to be like? Shepard would die again and again, only to come back later and change everything?

He glanced up at Rael. The boy was wringing his hands together like his mother always did, nervously waiting for him to relax. He couldn't. Not until he had answers. "Where is she?"


	4. Not As Stylishly

Chapter Three

Not As Stylishly

Rael felt like a kid again. Not in the playful, 'reconnecting with his inner-child' way, but in the 'mommy and daddy are fighting' way.

As soon as Archangel found out Shepard was alive, he'd become determined to find her. Rael was relieved, since he was sure Archangel could get past Solomon Gunn/Kai Leng. At least, Archangel was sure he could, which made Rael feel sure as well. Rael had been helping been him pack what few things he had when Solona, Archangel's sister (Rael now knew), had demanded to know 'what the hell her big brother thought he was doing.'

They'd been fighting ever since.

The only difference from this and his childhood was that instead of kicking his feet, Rael was checking his guns. That, and his parents had never fought this loud and this long. He didn't mind the wait; he had plenty of thoughts to occupy himself with. His mother didn't believe him, didn't believe in him. It stung, and made him feel like a little boy playing Spectre, instead of a man who was one. Rael suddenly wished Archangel would hurry up.

He was cleaning his pistol for the third time when the click-clack of turian feet drew his head away from his task.

Barefaced, red eyes, wearing what looked to be a variant of Titan armor, given the mottled black and grey that matched Rael's own hardsuit. Rael clutched his gun as the turian walked right up to him.

"The hell, Kenn?" Rael was beginning to feel bad for whoever Kenn was. He was probably going to get a lot of questions for being seen in two places at once. "How did you make it back here before me? I thought- Oh, sorry. Thought you were someone else."

"I've been getting that a lot." Rael forced a laugh. The turian glanced at the room where the Vakarians were still shouting, then shrugged and took a seat beside him.

"The Spectre medal gives you away," The man reached out to tap the medal. Rael jumped, startled, but the turian didn't notice. "Heard it about it on the news. Zael'Reekar right?"

"Rael'Reegar." He clarified. "And you are…?" He held out a hand and scooted further away on the bench in the process.

"Gavorn." He tilted his head and didn't take Rael's hand. So much for being subtly uncomfortable. Rael felt guilty, then the name clicked with him.

"Gavorn? Captain Preitor Gavorn?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You served with Commander Shepard during the Reaper Wars!" Rael gaped. Except for his mother and a few others, most of Commander Shepard's allies had simply vanished or died with the Reapers. It was like Commander Shepard and her team had never existed. But Rael had found two in one day.

"Geth Wars," Gavorn hissed, glancing around. No one was paying attention to them, too busy unloading from the raid. "Keep it down."

"Sorry." Rael shrugged, sounding anything but. Why did everyone keep saying Geth Wars? "I just never thought I'd find so many of her old team in one place." Gavorn was giving him a blank stare, as if his translator was broken and Rael was babbling nonsense. "I'm Tali'Zorah's son… you served with her…"

"Zorah's kid's the first quarian Spectre?" The red eyes went wide and looked him up and down again, as if they could somehow pierce his mask, "That's what I get for not looking it up, I guess." Gavorn shrugged, bemused.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened? After the R- the Geth War the records just… stop. Like everyone vanished. Mother doesn't like talking about it."

"Huh," Gavorn glanced at the door to the war room, still shut and offering no polite escape. "She wouldn't. I can't speak for everyone else, but I went with the G-man." Rael blinked. Gavorn did not just call the legendary Archangel of the Terminus Systems 'G-man.' "Couldn't go back to Omega, after all."

"Why not?"

"Aria doesn't take betrayal lightly."

"You betrayed Aria T'Loak? Why didn't I hear about it?"

"Because Shepard didn't tell it that way. She met me on Omega, said she was there to take down Aria," Gavorn laughed. It was a giddy sound, high-pitched and quick. "You know, I think she really could have done it too. They ended up working together instead, to find the heart of Omega," Gavorn paused to make sure no one was listening, "Shepard said it was another trap set by the Reapers, like the Citadel." He shook his head, "Shepard said a lot of crazy things."

"She's not crazy." Rael glared, trying to force as much warning into his voice as he could. Not for the first time, he resented his envirosuit. Most people seemed to want to hide their reactions. Rael wanted people to see his.

"Easy kid, I know." Gavorn raised his hand to ward off a tantrum. "Anyway, didn't change the fact that I betrayed Aria before I knew they'd work together. Shepard offered me a place on her ship. Didn't have anywhere else to go. When she died, I stuck with Garrus. No one else was taking in strays, you know?"

Rael didn't know. The story Gavorn told offhandedly to a stranger was one his mother had never told to her own son. It tied his stomach up in knots to learn that he didn't know half of what he thought he did. He'd thought he'd known everything there was to know about Commander Shepard when he set out to find her; now he felt like he knew next to nothing.

What else hadn't his mother told him? How many strangers was he going to meet who knew more about her than he did? Rael shook himself. He realized he knew something Gavorn didn't. When Gavorn had said Shepard died, he believed it. Apparently he wasn't part of the 'everyone' his mother had claimed knew Shepard was alive.

Garrus wished the doors in the complex weren't automatic so he could slam one open. As it were, he simply marched out of the war room and glared at where Rael was waiting. The boy bounced to his feet, as did the man beside him.

"Garrus, little warning when you bail next time?" Gavorn spoke up, forcing Rael into the background, "Not that it wasn't anything I couldn't handle," He added with a chuckle.

"Good, because you're handling it from now on."

"… for how long, man?" Gavorn wilted, but didn't protest.

"I'm not sure yet." Garrus glanced out over the complex, one of many he'd started over the past twenty years. He should have said something more reassuring, but he'd used up all his words on Solona.

Somehow, Garrus doubted more words would help. All they seemed to do was wedge his foot deeper down his throat. The only reason Solona had forgiven him for leaving the first time was because Shepard had done most of the talking for him.

"Not sure I can do this as stylishly as you." Gavorn joked half-heartedly.

"I know you can't." Garrus laugh sounded forced because it was. He was still too livid.

Gavorn nodded, trying to be supportive. He was his second in command, and Garrus would have been a poor leader if his second couldn't handle it. Gavorn nodded again, this time to no one in particular, rolled his shoulders back, and left to handle unloading.

Garrus gestured for Rael to follow. They could grab an aircar, head to the spaceport, and be on their way to Intai'sei before the day was over. Garrus was so focused on Shepard he almost forgot why Rael wanted to find her.

"You're sure about this war?"

"Positive," The boy replied immediately, with all the eagerness of youth Garrus knew he must have had once. "I don't have anything solid yet, but I know what's coming." He tugged on his Spectre medal. Nervous habit? "I can feel it in my gut."

The words were so familiar Garrus stopped, just in time for Solona to catch up with them. "Garrus, wait."

Garrus forced himself to push back every ounce of rage waiting to boil over. He wasn't mad at his sister. He wasn't even mad at Shepard. He was just mad. Blinding, directionless rage that had made him kill Saleon, made him want to kill Harkin- "Yeah Sol?"

Garrus waited for an argument that never came. "… bring me back something nice."

"I'll be in touch." Garrus mumbled and threw himself into the driver's seat of the aircar he and Rael had packed. Rael hopped in on the passenger's side and grabbed the safety railing, with an apologetic shrug in his direction. Garrus could have cared less; he was too busy watching his sister in the review screen.

She had her arms wrapped around her shoulders, watching him leave again. But unlike him, Solona wasn't still angry, she was just depressed… disappointed. Unlike him, she was a good person.

Rael had his hands clasped behind his back when Garrus finally focused on him again. His visor followed his scan path and gave him the usual readouts. Rael's heart rate was elevated, and his breath pattern fluctuated between slow and controlled to slightly hyper.

He stayed silent the entire ride, throughout the trip to the spaceport, loading the transport, all the way until they'd boarded, taken their seats, and cleared atmo.

"Archangel-" The boy started, clearly nervous. He'd been playing with the display on his window for the past two minutes. Garrus was in the aisle seat, getting jostled and knocked by every person who walked by. It did nothing for his mood.

"Just Garrus." It didn't matter how spacious public transports were, someone was always going to bump your elbow, drop their luggage on your toe, sneeze on your fringe… Shepard's shuttle (the combat cockroach, he could still hear her laughing…) barely had room for all of them, and no one had gotten in anyone's way.

"Garrus…" Rael chewed on the name, barely able to spit it out. "Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Shoot." Garrus was staring out into the aisle, not paying attention to him.

"Well, you know, the-… the Geth War-"

That got him to pay attention. "Reaper War." Garrus corrected instantly.

"Right. Reaper War," Rael's head spun. He was tempted to just start calling it 'The War' so he didn't offend anyone. "What was it like?"

"Oh, you know…" He trailed off.

"No I-… I really don't."

"Gather allies you didn't think you had, fight enemies you didn't know you had… fight inside Reapers expecting something mechanical and nasty to jump out at you, and hope you don't lose anyone along the way. You know… good times."

Rael blinked. He couldn't tell if Archangel was serious or not. But then, he guessed after saving the galaxy three times, it would be hard to take it all seriously. When 'preventing the end of all life as we know it' was part of the job description, it probably didn't seem like such a big deal.

"… what was Shepard like?"

"There aren't any words for someone like that." Rael knew his mother told him that tones could be deceiving, but there was no deceit in Archangel's voice, and the weight of his words. Suddenly what his mother had said about how Garrus wouldn't understand made a lot more sense.

"Did you love her?"

Garrus shot him a look that was nine parts 'What the hell kind of question is that?' and one part 'Yes.'

If everyone had such trouble controlling their reactions, Rael wondered why he was the one wearing the mask.

…

AN: Pleasantly surprised you guys seem to like Rael, because the poor boy is in for the long haul. I try to shy away from OC's, and yet… Well, I'll just cross my fingers and hope he becomes canon. It occurs to me this whole story might sound like one of Zaeed's stories down in the cargo hold, about how everything takes him back… Oops.


	5. Security Upgrades

Chapter Four

Security Upgrades

"Cold!" Rael screamed brainlessly as Garrus opened the car door.

"Deal with it." Garrus threw a cloak at him. Rael frowned down at the offending fabric, worn and frayed at the edges. He put it on and grumbled the entire time. Wearing it made him feel like he was perpetuating the gypsy-stereotype against his people.

Rael curled in on himself in the passenger's seat, pulling the rag about his shoulders and muttering. Garrus climbed out and stared at him, waiting for him to follow him out into the desert.

Deserts made no sense. They were blisteringly hot during the day, and bitingly cold at night. "We're five miles from the house," Rael reluctantly left the car, "Why are we stopping here?" Garrus also made no sense.

"Leng will have the Mako's scanners hooked up to the house's security feed," Garrus explained, locking a sniper rifle to his back. He already had an assault rifle, two pistols, and a belt of grenades. He looked like a walking armory. Why didn't Rael look like a walking armory? "That's five miles. My jammer won't hide the car, just us."

"Buh-wuh…" Rael groaned, tightening his cloak around his shoulders. He sighed and checked his pistol, glancing at Archangel and feeling horribly inadequate.

"Heh," He noticed, "You sure you know which end of the gun is the shooty bit?"

"I have a shotgun too," Rael muttered. A shotgun and the few odds and ends any marine should carry with him.

"You sound like your mother." Garrus looked over the aircar, where he'd parked it besides an outcropping of rocks. Ideally, he would have had it tactically cloaked. Ideally, it would have had its own jammer. But it was a rent-a-car they'd picked up at Thoreau Mesa, and had trouble puttering across the desert, let alone bringing them stealthed to Leng's house.

… The Lengs' house…

"Cold." Rael's voice reached him through the blood roaring in his skull.

"I know."

"Cold."

"I know."

"Cold."

"You can't possibly be a Spectre."

"I'm a Spectre," Rael huffed, tugging at the cloak. "And I'm cold." Garrus shook his head. Karma had deemed this be so, he told himself. It was what he got for complaining to Shepard for hours on Noveria.

_'Turians don't like the cold, Shepard. Did I ever tell you that?'_

_ 'About two minutes ago, Garrus.' _

"So did you love her?" Rael's voice trolled through his memories, making him almost stumble over a rock.

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

Rael shrugged, "We hide our faces," He gestured at his mask, and sounded like he was quoting a quarian poet, "When we hide our feelings too, we have nothing left to give."

He sounded like Williams with her Tennyson poetry. "Don't be such a woman."

"What's wrong with women?" _Oh cross-cultural jibes, how you've failed me._ "Sexist." Rael added under his breath.

_Oh for_- Then Garrus noticed Rael's shoulders were shaking. The brat had turned off his speakers to laugh at him. Definitely Tali's kid.

Garrus let himself laugh, trying to relax before he answered. "If Shepard and I wanted to share our 'feelings,' we blew something up."

"Well then you must have l-" Garrus thumped him. Rael rubbed his shoulder and slinked away. He waited a few minutes before he asked what seemed like an unrelated question. "Are we going to kill Kai Leng?"

"… no." _They're married, Garrus. _Tali's words echoed unwelcome in his head. _They want to be left alone_. "We're going to reason with him."

"… then why are we ready for a fight?"

"That's how you reason with Leng."

The rest of the walk was done mostly in silence. When the house came into view, Garrus pulled Rael aside. "Three varren pits, three nerve gas grenades. Create a distraction in the front. Leng won't fall for it. He'll be expecting us from the back, and leave the front wide open."

"So… we're creating a distraction that's not really a distraction?"

"Exactly."

Rael nodded enthusiastically. "I'm good at distractions."

"Count to ten, then let loose." Rael nodded again. Garrus had thrown gas grenades into two pits before Rael lit up like a beacon, surrounded by flares Garrus hadn't known he'd had.

He flung off his cloak, pulled a rock launcher off his back, and screamed, "Keelah se'lai!" before firing it at the front door. That … was definitely the Kal'Reegar in him.

Garrus rolled the last grenade into the final pit, and then jumped into the first where the varren were just starting to wobble. The nerve gas would have made Mordin proud. It was dissipated in seconds, and made gas masks unnecessary for whoever was using it.

He started a bypass on the door out to the pit, listening to Rael scream and holler in the background. At least the kid was having a good time. When he finally managed a bypass, (Garrus grudgingly had to admit Leng's security was as good as his), slipped inside and made his way up the stairs.

The entire house was arranged perfectly. The lower exits forced an upward battle, which any soldier could tell you was a losing battle. When he reached the first story, it was little more than a basement maze, and anyone who didn't know the layout would be lost.

Garrus realized then that he knew the layout. Because he'd been here before. He couldn't believe it. It was the home she'd won from Admiral Ahern.

It took everything in him not to laugh. The best hiding places were places no one would look. Her old home was a perfect hiding place, simply because it was such a terrible one. Rael had told him she was using the name Allison Gunn, the fake identity Kasumi had made for her, of all things. Who would look in such painfully obvious places? Who else but Shepard could get away with this?

The house had been rearranged and repurposed, but Garrus still knew where he was going. He had made it to the living room when a warning shot took him in the chest. His kinetic barriers absorbed it easily, all it did was make him tense.

"No solicitors." Leng's voice sounded from in front of him, not that it meant anything. The man could throw his voice wherever he wanted.

"I just need a minute of your time." Garrus combat scanner gave away Leng's position. He faced the window and ignored the voice coming from by the desk.

"Vakarian." Leng's voice dripped with venom, and he dropped down from the vent. "I should have known it was you."

"Maybe you're just not that smart." Garrus shrugged. Kai ignored him, and moments later Rael came stumbling into the room. Garrus shoved him into the floor as soon as he set foot in the room. A dart pinged off the wall where Rael had been standing and Leng scowled viciously.

"What do you want, Vakarian?" He bit off his name like a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Where's Shepard?"

"Dead. Didn't you get the memo?"

"What about Allison?" Rael offered from the floor. Leng glanced at him then back up at Garrus, one eye-browed raised as if he couldn't believe he'd brought him.

"Look Vakarian," He started, ignoring Rael as he scampered to his feet, "We have a history, and that's enough that I won't kill you-"

"Bull," Garrus interrupted. Leng would have killed his own mother, as far as he was concerned, "That's never stopped you before."

"Keep pushing," Leng hissed, "It might not stop me now."

"Sounds like a challenge."

"Challenge? It would be easy."

"Why are we fighting!" Rael squeaked. "Just let us see Allison, Shepard, whatever!"

"My wife is asleep," Rael saw Garrus twitch. Just hearing Leng call Shepard his wife must have upset him. "So was I, until you tried to blow in my front door." Rael blinked. The human's hair was disheveled and he was only wearing shorts. Again.

"So wake her up," Rael insisted, seeing an easy solution to all this. "We'll see she's not Shepard, and we'll leave."

… or at least, it seemed like an easy solution. "No."

"What do you mean 'no?'"

"I mean no. You'll leave now. Allison shouldn't have to wake up to cuttlebones and gypsies," He sneered at them, "And neither should I."

Something seemed out of place to Rael. Something outside the obvious.

The obvious being they'd just assaulted Solomon Gunn's house, who wasn't really Solomon Gunn but Kai Leng, a wetboy for Cerberus, who Garrus made clear he hated on the trip to Intai'sei. Everyone had their hands on their weapons, but no one was pointing weapons at anyone. They were all just waiting. Scanning the room and their options, treating the situation like a battlefield…

… like a battlefield…

"… How do you know she's not awake? I shot the front door with a rocket launcher," He laughed with a hint of disbelief at how readily he'd done so, "I can hear the wind blowing outside. She must have heard it. She's probably already awake."

"She's not." Leng snapped quickly. Perhaps too quickly.

For once, Rael was grateful for his mask, because Leng didn't see his eyes dart to the stairs to third story. If Shepard wasn't in here, there was only one other place she could be, and that was upstairs. Unfortunately, his mask also meant Garrus didn't see his eyes move, either.

Garrus must have jumped to the same conclusion, because the next thing Rael knew, Garrus had thrown a flash grenade at Leng, and Rael was running for the stairs. He didn't stop to look back; he could hear the thuds of hand-to-hand combat as Garrus delayed Leng as long as he could.

"No!" Leng screamed at them, furious. Pain seared through Rael's shoulder, making him stumble and slip. He clawed at his back, and yanked out a dagger wet with his blood. Dazed, he barely heard his VI blaring a 'suit-rupture' warning. Seals clamped over the tear on his back, and in seconds he was swimming in antibiotics.

Idly, all Rael could think was that Leng probably could have killed him with that throw, but had chosen not to. Now he was sure it was because Shepard had told him about his parents. Just like he was sure Shepard was upstairs. And deaf, apparently.

More thuds sounded behind him. He heard Garrus snarl, "Damnit," followed by a loud 'whump.' Rael half-crawled, half-ran the rest of the way. When he reached the top, a security door frowned down at him. Keelah, now what?

Rael paced in a circle, wondering if he should run back downstairs and help Garrus, when he saw the vent. He smeared a canister of omnigel on the simple lock and the grating clattered to the floor. Rael sent a silent prayer to the ancestors that the most useful locks were the last ones to be upgraded, and scrambled into the shaft.

Claustrophobia was not something any quarian would admit to. After being raised in the cramp conditions of the Flotilla, each person needed next to no space at all. But Rael hadn't been raised on the Flotilla, and felt like he was going to hyperventilate by the time he dropped down into the bedroom.

Except it wasn't a bedroom. It was a prison.

…

AN: Did I mention I really hope Kai Leng is a party member in ME3?  
The hardest part of this chapter was the title, which I still don't like, and basically gave up on. Thanks for reading!


	6. This Hurts You

Chapter Five

This Hurts You

The room sent Rael conflicting images of a prison and a clean room. The walls were sterile white, the floor an empty gray. There were no windows, no exits but the security door and the vent he'd entered from. Rael realized the only reason he'd even made it in was because the vent had already been open.

A full body scanner rested beside several terminals and medical equipment. It wouldn't have disturbed him but for the grating beneath it, and the small hose resting on the wall. Rael felt sick. It had to be to wash away the blood.

A cryo-tank was in the center of the room, mist rolling off the frosted glass. A cot rested beside the tank, covers thrown off and dangling on the floor. A table and two chairs were welded to the floor, one of the chairs lined in restraints.

It was like some macabre parody of a picturesque marriage. The wife who stayed at home, the couple who slept in separate beds, the overprotective husband…

Rael swallowed down bile and stumbled over his feet in his haste to reach the cryotank and open it. He hoped Garrus killed Kai. He prayed his mother didn't know about this. He cursed himself and every other Spectre for not finding Shepard sooner.

His fingers flew over the haptic interface. Like most quarians, Rale had no accelerometers in his fingers. Surgery meant a risk of infection, which meant the interface was in the glove sof his suit. Thank the ancestors the tank had no security measures registering it to one person.

The screen over the tank blared angry red, screaming warnings about a breach in protocol. Rael didn't care, he barely noticed. This was why Purgatory had been destroyed. No one deserved to live like this.

The tank roared to life, mist coming off in droves and blasting Rael with unnaturally chill air. Rael thought it a horrible injustice and terrible irony that the person who'd set the prisoners free was now living like one of them.

When the mist cleared, Rael keyed the restraints free, and a form stumbled out. Rael caught her before she could hit the ground. She was almost completely covered, long sleeves and pants, gloves and socks, a hooded jacket… as if any of it would help her in cryo, Rael thought viciously.

"Kai?" She mumbled groggily, the effects of cryo likely a fog around her mind.

"It's okay, he's not here," Rael hoped he was dead.

"No!" The human stumbled away from him, clutching her head in a daze with both hands.

Rael was thrown. Shepard didn't seem like the type to fall prey to Stockholm syndrome. He'd heard all about her in Spectre training. She should have been asking him for a gun by now. "You're safe," He insisted, trying to get through to her.

Her hood came off as she turned towards him, "You're not." Rael fell backwards, stunned.

It wasn't Shepard.

* * *

Garrus was furious. He wanted to kill Leng – should have killed him on sight – but every time he got the advantage in their fight, Tali's voice rang in his head, '_They're married Garrus. They want to be left alone_.' And he'd hesitate. What was worse, when Leng had the upper hand, he'd do the same thing.

They both wanted to kill each other. But without even being there, Shepard kept them both from doing so. Which meant they both reached the same conclusion: beat the shit out of each other.

Kai twisted and feinted towards his left. Garrus ignored it, the real attack was a punch he'd aimed for a joint in his armor. He twisted so Kai's hand hit hard ablative plating, and aimed an elbow for his jaw. Kai ducked underneath it and kicked for the side of his knee. Garrus went with the blow and dropped into a sweep kick that Kai jumped over.

They both rolled to standing but neither of them bothered to circle. Leng wasn't about to let him get to the stairs, "Just take the boy and leave Vakarian."

"Not without Shepard."

"Shepard's dead." Garrus had to hand it to him for sticking to his guns.

"Fool me once." He shrugged.

"Cute," Leng aimed a punch at his face; Garrus blocked it and another towards his midsection. "Are you the Archangel of standup?"

"I'll be here all week." They traded another round of blows, when suddenly the lights went red, and began to flash like human sirens.

"No!" Whatever it signified distracted Leng; his eyes darted to the stairs for the briefest of seconds, "No damn him!"

It was all the time Garrus needed it. He hit Leng with a left hook and a knee to his sternum, then leapt over him and ran up the stairs, throwing a flash grenade behind him.

A security door blocked his path, a small grate and empty canister on the floor from where Rael must have crawled through the vents. Garrus brought up his omnitool and started a bypass on the door. He heard a thump from inside, and Leng charging up the stairs behind him.

When he managed to get the doors open, Rael smashed into him trying to run out of the room, and Leng smashed into him trying to get in. Rael collapsed, while Leng and Garrus held their ground.

"What have you done!" Leng screamed, grabbing the quarian off the ground by his belt and slamming him into the wall.

"It's not Shepard, it's not Shepard," Rael repeated over and over.

"Lock the door!" Leng screamed at him, flinging Rael aside and sprinting into the room.

"Don't-don't-" Rael stammered. Garrus had to give it to the kid for knowing what he was thinking. Stepping inside the room, he dragged Rael in and locked the door behind them.

"Rael!" He barked into the trembling quarian's face, "You're a Spectre, not a kid; you don't get to sit this one out."

"I-I-" Rael words choked in his throat. Garrus saw his own face reflected in the boy's mask. Eyes as cold as ice, a scarred face and scarred spirit that left no room for question. _Archangel. It's not just a nickname. You actually think your some kind of hero, torturing a scared kid and trying to break up your best friend's marriage_. "Aye aye." Rael nodded nervously, shattering his train of thought, before a voice shattered his mind.

"…Garrus?"

* * *

_Something is different_.

The pattern was broken. The vessel was resting, they were at their strongest. They were at their weakest. The cryo held them, held them back. The human would be ready for them, as he always was. They would fight, as they always did. Sooner or later, the human would fail. It was inevitable.

The pattern was broken. The vessel was not yet aware. It could not resist them. The cryo released them, freed them. The time of ascendance was at hand. The human had not freed them. Quarian. Cybernetic augmentation. Immune system... stronger than the others.

_Impressive. Irrelevant._

The quarian reached out to catch the vessel, careful not to disturb it. The vessel slept. _The human is the threat. Locate it. Free the vessel_. "Kai?" They forced the vessel to speak. The words were slurred, spoken through the fog of its pitiful dreams.

"It's okay, he's not here," The vessel stands alone? The human has been eliminated?

The temperature change disturbed the vessel. Flesh is a weakness. Imperfect. They tapped into the vessel's unconscious systems, attempting to subtly increase melatonin levels to coax the vessel back towards its dream state.

The vessel fought them, struggled towards waking. It never ceased to interfere, even unaware. _Arrogant_. "No!" Their control wavered.

"You're safe," The quarian spoke. The vessel heard the words, relaxed, eased towards sleep. Relinquished its form to them. They turned the vessel to the quarian. It stood between them and freedom.

"You're not." They let the vessel's cover fall back, revealing themselves for what they were. Perfection.

The quarian fled pitifully. They let it, waiting for it to open the security door for them, to aid them in their freedom. But it jumped for the vents, missed, then pounded on the door, screaming, calling for aid.

_It will wake the vessel_.

It had become a threat. They moved the vessel forward, dragged its feet in a shambling sleep-walk. The door opened. Turian. The Archangel. Human. Kai Leng. They would not interfere again. They would eliminate the turian, after they dealt with the human.

The human rushed them, dagger and pistol glinting in its hands. "Shepard!" He screamed, flinging the dagger towards the vessel. They blasted him and the weapon with dark energy, all the while flooding the vessel's unconscious systems. It had to stay asleep.

The human's dampening field weakened their biotics, but they'd kept the dagger from hitting the vessel. "Alli!" The human screamed again. The vessel woke, and fought them almost instantly.

"Leng, your interference has ended." They hissed, gathering energy for a final attack. The vessel fought back, pushed their influence away. The energy wavered and then died. They retreated, for the moment. There would be another chance. There would always be another chance.

They watched, in the dark corners of the vessel's mind, as Leng rushed forward and grabbed the fallen dagger, and then caught their vessel as it fell. He drove the dagger into the vessel's shoulder. Leng took no chances. They did nothing to quench the pain. He could only damage the vessel. He could not hurt them.

The vessel hissed, and caught his hand. It nodded. They were contained. Then it glanced to the Archangel.

"… Garrus?"

* * *

"Shepard…" Garrus choked on his words. He was horrified. He was furious. He was stricken. Rael was right, it wasn't Shepard… but it was.

The same red, cybernetic eyes, lenses shifting as they focused on him. The same blazing red scars across her face as her body rejected the Cerberus implants. Her hair was the same black of space, only now it held a streak of gray he was sure she was too young to have.

Her skin was stretched taunt and gray at her neck, where blue cybernetics glowed beneath. Imbedded in the back of her skull beneath her neck was a black slender tube, which twisted around her throat and vanished beneath her jacket.

More cybernetics, (blue, black, red) showed at the breaks in her clothes. Her skin switched between patches of mottled gray and her usual spacer pale. She wasn't as bad as a husk, but anyone could recognize the horrible augmentations she was covered in.

Shepard stared at him, saw him stare at her. Those inhumane eyes flashed with a purely human emotion: despair. She turned away from him in shame and faced Kai.

He should say something. Something about how it wasn't so bad. He barely noticed. A joke about slapping some make-up on so no one could tell. Anything to get that look out of her eyes that suddenly seemed worse than her implants.

Kai broke the silence when Garrus should have. "Now that you know, I can't let you leave."

So it was true... Shepard had never died…

And neither had the Reapers.

* * *

**AN**: HOSHIT! I discovered how to insert horizontal section breakers!  
Also Reapers.  
Thanks for reading!


	7. Commander, How Are You?

Chapter Six

Commander, How Are You?

Garrus had spent the past twenty years of his life thinking Shepard was dead. He'd left the Normandy as soon as it docked from their final battle, and took a transport back to the Terminus. The war was over, and he hadn't wanted to deal with the political fallout. He'd gotten offers for positions at C-Sec, the Spectres, Hierarchy Legions, and hadn't wanted anything to do with any of them.

They were empty offers wrapped in bureaucratic red tape. They wanted a turian war hero to set up beside Commander Shepard on advertisements and recruitment vids. They didn't actually want him to do anything.

After Shepard had reunited him with Solona, he knew he couldn't go back to Omega. He wouldn't take his family there. Invictus had been perfect. It had been closer to Helos Medical Institute than Palavan, and easier to check up on his mother. The cities were safe, and the jungles were riddled with pirates and slavers.

All he'd needed to do was start calling himself Archangel again, and he'd had a base, a team, and criminals to eliminate in next to no time. Nothing else had felt right. Everyone who'd survived had a group to join, a place to retire, a way to move on. Cleaning up the Terminus had been his, and who was going to stop him?

But no matter how many criminals he killed, he never felt like he was making as much a difference as he did with Shepard. Old times were the best times, and when he'd heard that she was alive, he hadn't stopped to think about what he might find.

The galaxy was in danger again, and they were going to save it again. Or so he'd thought.

Shepard pulled her hood back up over her head and faced away from him. She pulled the dagger Leng had driven into her shoulder out with a wince, and wiped it off on her sleeve before handing it back to Leng. The red, blue, and white stains that had coated the dagger were a marker of how wrong Garrus had been.

"Now that you know," Leng broke the silence, rolling the dagger over his fingers, "I can't let you leave." Garrus felt his blood boil all over again. The man had stabbed Shepard, and all she could do was massage her wounded shoulder. Neither of them went for medigel, or made any pretense of pretending it was out of the ordinary.

"Kai, stop." Shepard mumbled. All the familiar command and fire was gone from her voice.

"You know I'm right," Leng snapped, "Miranda said-"

"Lawson knew about this?" Garrus growled.

"Of course she knew." Leng sneered, his voice twisted with disdain. "Everyone knew. Everyone except you, because we knew you weren't man enough to handle it!"

"I'm man enough to kill you," Garrus snarled, going for his pistol while Leng did the same. A tidal wave of biotic energy flooded the room, and wrapped everyone in a stasis field. Shepard stood in the center of a crackling blood blue sphere, looking as though she was expending next to no energy to immobilize them all.

"Everyone stop!" She snarled, "We're not killing anyone today." The field evaporated, and Rael gave a nervous giggle.

"Just today? Heh…eheh… oh good," He whined and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, looking miserable.

"Shepard," Garrus started again, ignoring Leng and Rael, "I don't understand. We won. What is this?"

"Exactly what it looks like, Garrus." She glanced at him sidelong from beneath her hood, two red orbs in the black, "We never won," She laughed a humorless, hollow laugh, "We never even came close."

"So you did… this… to yourself instead?" He should have been gentler. He couldn't help it. He was still in the dark and he hated it. "Why? What does this even achieve?" Shepard didn't answer. To Garrus's astonishment, she looked at Leng, waiting for him to answer for her.

"Every day Shepard fights the Reapers is a day they stay in the dark space." Leng explained begrudgingly and leaned back against the edge of the table. Shepard didn't seem to know what to do with herself, and took a seat in the chair lined in restraints. Restraints. Garrus ground his teeth together.

"The space outside the galaxy?" Rael asked from his spot on the floor.

"Outside every galaxy," Leng scowled.

"That's a weak excuse for another sick Cerberus experiment." Garrus snapped. He wanted to catch Shepard's eyes, but she was staring at her gloved hands in her lap. "I was there, we fought the Reapers and wiped them out."

"We fought the first wave," Shepard mumbled.

"This is the best solution we've got," Leng said firmly, "The influence from her implants goes both ways."

Garrus folded his arms over his chest, "So did Chambers, but I wouldn't use her to fight the Reapers."

"Ha!" Shepard barked, making Rael jump. She curled in on herself sheepishly and scratched the back of her neck, "Sorry, I haven't heard a good joke in… God…"

"Even if that's true, this isn't a solution. This is just-just-" He bit his tongue. The only word that came to mind was 'sick.'

"Delaying the inevitable." Shepard's voice echoed off itself. Spirits, could the Reapers speak through her, or did she really believe that?

"There are still plenty of options left, we could easily-"

"Garrus, please don't tell the Reapers your plans." Shepard interrupted him with a sardonic lit to her voice. He blinked, and she elaborated, "Everything I hear, they hear." Garrus's mind went blank, as if suddenly everything he could say was tainted. "It's not like the Normandy, where you can just jam the monitoring devices so we can talk freely. If you've got ideas, share them with Miranda, not me. She's working on it."

"For twenty years!" He lost it. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Tali thinks you're living an idyllic married life, and you're just sitting here like some Reaper puppet!"

"Everyone wants a happy ending." Shepard whispered.

"And you just told everyone what they wanted to hear?"

"I told them what they would believe!" Shepard snapped. She flashed with a rush of biotic energy, and Leng grabbed his dagger before she calmed down. She shook her head at nothing in particular, and then started mumbling to herself. "I told her not to tell you I was alive. I knew you wouldn't understand…"

"You think Tali would understand what you've done to yourself any better than I do?"

"No. She wouldn't understand this is a war we can't win."

"You sound like Saren," Garrus said before he could stop himself. Shepard looked at him in disbelief, and he hated himself. Why did he talk? Why did he even speak?

"Vakarian," Leng spoke up in the crushing silence, "I need to tell you something I don't want the Reapers to hear." Garrus glared at him, but Shepard nodded and looked away from them both. She started strapping herself into the chair, apparently not trusting her own body unless Leng was there to watch her. Garrus felt bile curdle in his throat, and walked with stiff steps to the door. Leng paused to glance at Rael, "If she acts up, shoot her. She'll be fine."

"I don't think-" Rael squeaked.

"Do it." Shepard added. Rael looked even more miserable, if possible, and nodded sullenly.

As soon as the security door closed behind them, both of them shouted in unison, "What the hell is wrong with you!"

Leng continued before Garrus could, "Are you blind or just stupid?" He waved his hand at the door; thankfully the room was soundproof. "Are you trying to make her upset?"

"She should be upset!" Garrus hollered; he couldn't help it. He was furious. There had to be a way to fix this, a way to reverse what she'd done to herself. "Have you seen her?"

"No, she shouldn't." Leng took a deep breath to control himself. Garrus was rather proud they both had enough self-restraint that they hadn't started fighting yet. After a minute of both of them trying to bottle up their hatred for each other, Leng continued, "Shepard can't be depressed."

"Shepard doesn't get depressed." Garrus returned almost instantly. When Shepard was upset, she got angry, not sad. Her uncontrollable biotics seemed enough evidence of that.

"Stupid, then." Leng nodded to himself, "You see this?" He trailed the point of his knife along a vicious scar that ran from his neck, across his chest, and down his side. It took everything in Garrus not to force Leng to stab himself. "She gave this to me the day she found out Krios died. Despair means surrender. When Shepard surrenders, the Reapers take over. She. Can't. Be. Depressed."

"I'm not depressing her." He was; he knew he was, but Garrus couldn't be anything but defensive or aggressive when it came to Leng.

"If you can't tell she's distressed, maybe you just don't know her as well as I do," Leng threw a hint of a leer into his voice on purpose. Garrus knew he shouldn't rise to the bait.

"You don't know her," but he did anyway.

"Of course I do," Leng grinned luridly, "I'm her husband." Garrus punched him. Leng took the first blow Garrus threw, but managed to dodge the second. He grabbed Garrus arm and twisted around him. Leng used the momentum to slam Garrus face first into the wall, then hissed in his ear, "I know every intimate detail you can only fantasize about." Garrus heaved backwards, slamming Leng against the opposite wall and knocking him off. He spun around and dropped into a fighting stance, but Leng didn't attack him. He just stood there, sneering.

"You think I don't know why the gypsy boy ran to you? Because you're the only love-struck fool dumb enough to come here. In case you didn't notice, she doesn't want to be saved. This whole thing was _her_ idea." Garrus didn't believe him. He couldn't think of a reason for Leng to lie, but Leng didn't need a reason. He was a liar, an assassin, Cerberus.

It had to have been a seed Cerberus had planted, subtly manipulating Shepard to end up here. Or there was some way Shepard had been forced into it. "She chose to be here, just like she chose to be here without you. Just leave, and forget you ever came here."

"I didn't come here to save her." Garrus snapped. Shepard was the one who saved others. No one saved her. He'd come here to find her, to help her, to be by her side. He was her second, it was where he belonged. It was the only place he felt right being.

It was where he would have been for the past twenty years, if Shepard had let him. If he'd been with her for the final fight, he would have known she hadn't died, and he never would have left. But she hadn't let him come with, and then she'd let him think she was dead.

He knew Leng wasn't right. He might doubt himself, but he didn't doubt Shepard. She could beat the Reapers. She could have beaten them twenty years ago, if she'd just tried. How could he have missed her giving up? When did she start to lose faith in herself? Garrus didn't come to save her, but now he was sure he had to.

He just didn't know how he was going to save someone who didn't want to be saved.


	8. Nightmare Stuff

Chapter Seven

Nightmare Stuff

Rael was in over his head. He'd wanted to recruit Commander Shepard to fight the Terminus Systems. He hadn't wanted to find out the Reapers were still very much alive and very much a threat. And that Commander Shepard, a Spectre he'd once idolized, had been turned into a husk, something the history books said was little more than a mindless killing machine.

But she seemed very much alive, and very disinclined to kill anyone. And Leng and Garrus had stepped outside and left him alone with her. She'd restrained herself to a chair, but after she put all of them in stasis without breaking a sweat, Rael wondered how much good it would do.

"It's alright," Shepard's voice broke into his thoughts. Her terrifying, echoing voice. "The restraints are custom made from Silaris materials. If a direct blast from a Collector ship couldn't destroy them, I doubt I can." He swallowed and nodded, standing up and walking over. "It's also got a built in dampening field, so my biotics shouldn't do much." She chuckled. It was fake and mirthless, "Pull up a chair."

Rael eased himself down into the opposite seat, then drew his pistol like Leng had told him. Shepard eyed it and looked decidedly unimpressed. "You have anything bigger?" He switched to his shotgun and she nodded. This was not happening. This couldn't be happening. He was dreaming. This was a-

"What's your name?" How could she be so casual? He could have to shoot her at any minute, when massive alien starships took over her brain and turned her into a weapon of mass destruction.

"Rael'Reegar vas Moreh nar Neema." He tried to keep his voice steady, the way her face softened at his name helped. The angry red lines beneath the cracks in her skin dimmed, and the cybernetic lenses that focused on him warmed and seemed to melt into the natural shade of her eyes. She looked almost human.

"You're Tali's son." Rael nodded dumbly. "I wish I could have been there when you were born."

_Tali_.

Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy Nar Rayya. A quarian engineer she'd met on the Citadel, who'd been with her through the battle with the first vessel, -vessel?

"We're born in clean rooms. You wouldn't have been able to be there." Rael blurted, breaking her train of thought. His words slurred together in his haste.

"Your mother was acclimated to me," She explained, resisting the urge to drum her fingers along her armrest. "We linked suits before the final fight with the Reapers. Most important gesture of acceptance and trust, and then I lied to her."

"So she doesn't know you're… you're…"

"No."

"Oh. Good. I mean. Um. I mean-… Why did you do it?"

"Ask Leng. Ask Miranda. Ask anyone else."

_Miranda_.

Miranda Lawson, a Cerberus Officer and the head of the Lazarus Cell. She'd been genetically engineered to be the perfect human specimen, and had been assigned to help her in her battle against the Collectors. They'd started out as rivals, until she'd helped her with her-

"I can't think about it." Shepard snapped without warning, making Rael jump in his seat.

"I-I'm sorry?" He stammered, tugging on the belt across his chest.

"It's okay; it's not your fault," Shepard sighed. Her first visitors in years and she was scaring the shit out of them. She'd begun to hate seeing the few people who knew the truth about her 'retirement.' Her outbursts frightened them, her appearance disgusted them. Kai was the only one who wasn't phased. The only one who treated her like a person when she hadn't been one in twenty years.

_Kai_.

Kai Leng, a former N7 marine and current Cerberus wetwork operative, who'd been assigned to her squad after he'd killed the last vessel-

"There are just things I know that I shouldn't think about." Shepard gave in and started tapping her fingers on the armrest. The Reapers hated it. Her pointless, organic habits, wasting space in their databanks. She'd spent an entire day singing _I'm Henry the Eighth, I Am_ in her head, and it had more than paid off. They'd completely vanished from her mind for hours. "The more idle the thought, the easier it is for them to pick up on."

"Oh… I see…" Rael mumbled in a tone that made it clear he did not. "So do you just spend all day not thinking?"

"I live an exciting life."

"I'm sorry." Poor kid. At least he wasn't stuttering anymore. Shepard wondered what he was even doing here, but knew better than to ask him. He was a Spectre, but clearly young and naïve. If she asked, he'd tell her without reservations. And tell the Reapers. No amount of their influence would force that question out of her.

"How did you and Garrus meet?"

"I came here by myself first, but Leng wouldn't let me see you. I thought Archangel could get past him." He tugged on his belt again, and glanced around nervously, "I thought he knew you were alive…. Why didn't you tell him?"

"… Garrus is different." Rael tilted his head to the side, curiously waiting for her to continue. Shepard sighed, and took a deep breath. She felt like Zaeed, telling stories about the good-old-days to a wide-eyed version of her past self.

"When Cerberus brought me back, I tried to find my old team. They'd all moved on. They had new lives, new responsibilities. Even the ones who wanted to join me had things to take care of first. Everyone except Garrus. He saw me in a brand new body through his scope after two years dead, and wouldn't even shoot live ammo on the _off-chance_ it _might_ have been me. If he knew I was alive, he'd have tried to find me," She twitched her head towards the door he'd left through with Kai, "Point in case. Besides. Retirement? Garrus knows me better than that. He wouldn't have believed it for a second."

"So why didn't you just tell him, you know, the truth?"

"… he would have convinced me not to do it. And every human in the galaxy would be a brand new reaper baby right now." She could feel the reapers in the back of her mind, pushing like metal on metal for her to think about why that would have happened. How humanity would have failed. Looking to exploit everything she knew. Shepard shut them out. "I'm easily influenced. As you might have noticed." She chuckled to herself, and Rael gave her a blank stare. Reaper-humor was apparently lost on him.

Shepard sighed and glanced at the door, wondering when Kai and Garrus were going to come back in and hoping they hadn't killed each other.

_Garrus_.

Garrus Vakarian. He was her best friend, he'd stood by her and trusted her implicitly from the moment he met her. She'd been the first person who'd understood him; his distaste for the legal system and desire for justice unimpeded by red tape and politics. The feeling was mutual. She'd never had a better friend, someone she could-

Shepard was filled with a sudden distaste for her own thoughts. She blinked, bewildered. That wasn't right. Garrus made her feel just the opposite, even when the disgust she now felt had been written across his face when he looked at her. It clicked with her the more she thought on it. The disgust was the Reapers', for her organic emotions and unhelpful focus.

Shepard smirked to herself. They wouldn't learn anything about Garrus. Not from her. Nothing but how he'd always been there for her to lean on, how they'd gotten wasted in the Dark Star, how-

The disgust grew and then vanished. The Reapers retreated, and for the moment her mind was fully her own again. Shepard laughed to herself, then kept laughing. She couldn't believe that actually worked! Thinking about her friendship with Garrus, when it was on the verge of breaking, freed her mind for the first time in months. He might hate her for what she'd done, but he was still helping her, whether he knew it or not.

Shepard felt elated. They were gone. Peace. Tranquility. Solitude. Quiet. She laughed so hard she shook and tears stung her eyes. And then Rael shot her.

Shepard let out a scream that was more of a groan. She tried to curl in on herself protectively, but thanks to her restraints all she managed to do was flop her head forward. "Jumpy little shit, aren't you?" The words gurgled in the back of her throat, and blood pooled in her mouth. A gaping hole in her stomach from his shotgun filled her field of vision, and she couldn't lift her head away from it. "That was my N7 jacket…" She coughed.

"Oh Keelah! I thought-you were hysterical and-he said if you acted up-I didn't know what that meant-Oh keelah I'm such a bosh'tet!" Rael leapt up from the table and ran to the door. He could have gone for the medigel himself, but he was getting Garrus or Kai to do it. Shepard couldn't blame him.

What was it Anderson had said? The Reapers were nightmare stuff? Or something… she coughed again, more annoyed than anything else. Not at Rael, but at the way her head lulled uselessly, forcing her to stare at the hole in her stomach.

"Shepard!" She heard Garrus yell, sounding far away. When she was drained, wounded, or exhausted, the Reapers were weakest. It was only once she fell unconscious that they had total control.

"She'll be fine." Kai echoed in the background. "Keep back."

She felt her systems flood with medigel, and the cool salve fill the hole in her stomach. It had to be Garrus. Kai would have known better. Only her Reaper augmentations could fix a shotgun blast from that range. She'd be unconscious any second; he was just prolonging the pain.

Garrus always lost his shit when she was in trouble. She could still remember him screaming 'Shepard's been hit!' whenever she took a bad hit on the battlefield. Talons wrapped around the back of her neck, uncomfortable against the cybernetics that twisted out of the base of her skull. Her vision finally spun away from the gaping hole in her chest and focused hazily on his face. There was no disgust. No revulsion. Just concern. He was even holding her hand.

Shepard smiled, and squeezed his hand as best she could. "You really should keep back."

Everything went dark, and the Reapers surged forth.  


* * *

**AN**: Rael just makes a great Spectre, doesn't he? As always, thanks for reading, you guys rock!


	9. Drink Life to the Lees

Chapter Eight

Drink Life to the Lees

Chat Transcription – Text exchange

Allison Gunn (Location: Intai'sei)

Liara T'soni (Location: Redacted)

12:03: A: you there?

12:04: L: Shepard!

12:05: L: Of course. It wouldn't be much of a direct line if I wasn't. How are you?

12:06: A: tired

12:06: L: I'm sure… I'm sorry…

12:08: L: But it's midday your time. Is something wrong?

12:09: A: been unconscious for a while, passed out in my highchair. My back is killing me

12:10: L: What happened?

12:11: A: Rael shot me. He came here with

12:13: A: Why am I telling you what happened? You probably already know

12:14: L: I do, but I like to hear you say it.

12:15: A: You like hearing about how I got shot?

12:16: L: What!

12:16: L: No! Of course not!

12:17: A: I was kidding Liara

12:19: A: Don't pout

12:20: L: I'm not pouting.

12:22: A: Anyway. Everyone's downstairs talking. Kai left me with the terminal. Garrus wants me to leave Intai'sei to help Tali's kid with some quest of his

12:22: A: I think he just wants me to leave Kai

12:23: A: I was hoping you could tell me about what they need me for

12:24: L: The Reapers were hoping I'd tell you about what they need you for.

12:25: A: right. yeah. sorry. had to ask

12:26: A: How are Feron and the girls?

12:27: L: Feron's doing well. He's on Illium right now, brokering a deal with an important client for me.

12:28: L: The girls miss him, but they're fine. Though Benezia is starting to take after Massani...

12:28: A: That old bastard's still alive?

12:29: L: And teaching my daughters curse words I don't even know.

12:29: A: To be fair, you don't know a lot of curse words, Liara

12:30: L: I appreciate you getting the Blue Suns to work for me, but sometimes I wish they were a little more…

12:30: A: Quiet?

12:30: L: Civil.

12:31: A: it can't be that bad

12:32: L: It's not. This place has turned into something of a home, and not just for me.

12:33: L: Benezia is friends with this young batarian boy. They're all good people. Massani leading them again must help. He's a good man, if a little… off.

12:40: L: Shepard?

12:41: A: sorry, drifted off for a bit

12:41: L: I wish I didn't know what that really meant.

12:42: A: You and Miranda must be getting close to finding a way to beat them

12:42: L: You know I can't tell you.

12:43: A: I know

12:43: A: damnit, I know

12:43: A: I don't even know why I asked. I just had to ask

12:48: A: Whatever Rael's after, is it worth it?

12:49: A: At least tell me if I should go with them. If it's worth the risk.

12:49: L: You'd just be a weapon, Shepard.

12:50: L: Fighting without knowing why.

12:50: A: "My body is a weapon. You can't hold a weapon responsible for what it does."

12:51: L: Krios had a terrible philosophy.

12:51: A: Admit it, I made you laugh

12:52: L: I will admit no such thing.

12:53: A: I trust you Liara. Just… tell me if it's worth it

12:54: L: It's worth it.

12:54: L: Just take every precaution you can.

12:55: L: And Shepard

12:56: A: Yeah?

12:57: L: Come see me when you get the chance. It's been too long.

12:59: A: Alright. I'll talk to you later, Liara.

[End Transmission]

Shepard rolled the kink out of her neck and ran her hands through her hair. She tugged idly on the streak of silver, annoyed at what the Reapers had done to her body. Somewhere in the logical part of her brain, she knew it was stress that had dyed her hair, but she preferred to blame the Reapers for everything.

If she spilled her coffee, it wasn't because she was clumsy. The Reapers were trying to make her tired. If she fought with Kai, it wasn't because she was irritable. The Reapers wanted to isolate her. If Garrus hated her, it wasn't her fault. It was the Reapers'.

Shepard shook herself and stared at the terminal. It was entrenched in encryptions, lockdowns, and countless other security measures. It had no extranet access outside of a direct line for her to talk to Liara or Miranda.

The Cerberus Daily News scrolled on the right side of the screen. She had local archives and databanks she could entertain herself with, but if she wanted something recent, Kai had to download it for her and transfer it to her terminal. Shepard sighed and leaned back in her chair, kicking her feet up on the desk.

Anderson hadn't wanted to spend his twilight years in front of a desk. She hadn't really given his life much thought until she'd been locked in this room. But he'd lost two years, she'd lost twenty.

_Anderson_.

Admiral David Anderson had resigned his post, married Kahlee Sanders, now Kahlee Anderson, and lived a peaceful life believing his protégée had given her life to stop the Reapers. If he only knew the truth.

Shepard sighed and started tapping her foot on the desk. Now she was going to leave. What if someone saw her? Recognized her? Told Anderson? Told anyone?

If the Council found out the rogue Spectre who'd murdered Tela Vasir was alive, they'd send people after her. If they found out Rael'Reegar was working with her, they'd spend people after him too.

If the Spectre they sent was smart, as most Spectres tended to be, (Shepard was beginning to consider herself and Rael the exceptions) they'd go after Rael's family. Tali would be in danger. His actions could cost the quarians their seat on the Council, maybe even their embassy.

What if the Spectre they sent was Williams…? Send the second human Spectre to eliminate the first? They'd done it before. Hunting her down was the first assignment the Council had given Ash. Shepard smiled to herself. They hadn't expected it to backfire.

_"I don't want to do this, Skipper."_

_ "You don't have to, Ash. Come with me."_

_ "You destroyed the Dracon Trade Center! You killed Vasir, and you're working with terrorists! How can you ask me to come with you!"_

_ "Because you called me Skipper. Think Ash. Deep down, you know the pieces don't fit. Anderson told you about the Omega Relay, didn't he?"_

_ "… Before you came back. He said you might die again… But everything the Council said-"_

_ "Damnit Williams, don't make the same mistake twice." Garrus. It was always Garrus. _

_ "A lie made of half a truth is the blackest of lies."_

_ "… you shouldn't quote Tennyson, Skipper… you're really bad at it."_

It had taken Ash nearly a year to forgive her for working with Cerberus. How could she forgive her for becoming a Reaper-vessel? Even Garrus, the person Shepard trusted more than anyone, didn't seem to understand.

The only people who knew the truth about her condition were Kai, Liara, Miranda, Legion, and a handful of Cerberus scientists, Doctor Archer being one of them.

The only reason they knew was because they understood, and in some cases, didn't care. Most of the people who'd helped make this possible didn't even know what they'd done. Like Kahlee Sanders, and her research on how the Reapers had altered a man named Paul Grayson. Or Chakwas, who didn't understand what the regular scans were for, but never asked. Or Tali, who thought her VI program would be used as a virus against the Reapers.

Tali… she couldn't put her or her people at risk. The only reason the Council had granted the quarians an embassy was because they'd gained counter measures against the geth thanks to Project Overload. Hypocrites. They condemned her so readily for working with Cerberus, then used their research with abandon.

Shepard sighed and ran her hands through her hair, then was suddenly annoyed she couldn't feel it. She was alone, so she saw no harm in taking off her gloves, which meant that Garrus chose that exact minute to walk in. Shepard sat on her hands. "Hey." She offered brilliantly.

"Hey," He stepped forward enough that the door closed behind him, then seemed uncertain as to what to do with himself.

"You can sit," She suggested.

"Thanks," He didn't.

Shepard shifted awkwardly. She was almost surprised Kai had let him come in alone, but then, few people could stop Garrus when he set his mind towards something. "How's your head?"

"Fine." The Reapers had made her headbutt him as soon as she'd fallen unconscious, then had started preaching until Kai had made them all leave. Or at least, that was what they'd told her. She couldn't remember what the Reapers made her do when she was unconscious or asleep.

"… how've you been, Garrus?" That was a weak start. Ash had been furious with her when that had been all she'd had to say on Horizon, but Shepard could never think of anything else to start with.

"Oh, you know," He shrugged, "Just killing time."

"Back on Omega…?" She struggled to keep the disappointment out her voice and failed. She hated to think he'd slipped back to where he'd been when she'd found him.

"Invictus," He kept his eyes off her, but seeing that apparently wasn't enough, added, "With Sol."

"Good… great."

"Yeah." Well this was an inspiring conversation.

"Garrus-"

"Shepard-"

"… you first."

"Leng told me why you did it." He started pacing, scratching at the back of his head. "Look, Shepard, I'm not-… I don't…" Garrus took a deep breath. "We should have kept fighting. We should have kept trying. We would have found something else, something better. I don't like this, I don't fully understand it, and I don't even agree with it."

Shepard nodded, trying to take everything he said in stride. He was being honest. At least he wasn't yelling. She could feel the Reapers in the back of her mind, clawing at her, grinding her thoughts together, feeding off her growing dread.

"But you should have told me." Garrus glared at a point above her shoulder, still not looking at her. She tried to summon up anger in return, something to throw back at him and the Reapers, but couldn't remember a time when she was ever angry at him. Maybe the Reapers wouldn't let her think of one. Maybe there wasn't one.

"You would have tried to stop me."

"Damn right I would have."

"Then Kai must have made a poor argument because this was the only way!" There. She was on the defensive. Anger warmed her and pushed the Reapers back.

"I don't care!" He snarled at her, raw emotion, unfiltered by reason. "Every time we saw a husk, every time we saw a Collector, you said it was a fate worse than death, and then you did it to yourself!"

"I don't see you rushing to put me out of my misery," Shepard stood up; she didn't care if he could see her hands. He could already see her face, and had already seen the mangled knot of cybernetics at her stomach before she'd changed her shirt and jacket. "So it must not be that bad."

Apparently, he cared that he could see her hands. Garrus had opened his mouth to fling out a retort, when his eyes fixed on the mesh of black wires, taunt skin, and blue cybernetics. Shepard abruptly stuffed her hands into her pockets. "… how bad is it?" He took a few unsteady steps towards her then stopped. He clearly wanted to pull her hands out of her pockets, but didn't dare touch her. Garrus almost never touched her.

Shepard forced a smile. It wasn't nearly half as difficult as she'd thought it would be. "Let's just say I won't be modeling for Fornax any time soon."

"I'd pay to see that." Garrus snorted, then realized what he'd said. "Wait no-I mean, that sounded bad-" Shepard bit her lip to keep from bursting out laughing. Thank God he hadn't changed. Garrus buried his face in his hand and massaged his forehead. "So what were you going to say?"

Her amusement dissipated and she stared at the floor. She had to tell him she wouldn't be there with him for this one. It was too much of a risk. Someone could recognize her, or worse, recognize what she'd become.

_The vessel must be freed._

The Reapers surged forth, forced all their might on a moment that could change everything. The vessel had become more and more resistant to them, and this one simple act took nearly all their strength. They latched onto Shepard's regret, used the brief surrender to twist into her unconscious systems and increase hormone levels, while they sent subtle electrical impulses to alter her emotional state. It had to be subtle, precise. Something the vessel would barely notice. It was stronger than the others.

And so they took her regret away.

Shepard glanced up at her best friend, and opened her mouth to tell him everything, and found, to her horror, that nothing was holding her back. She didn't feel ashamed or remorseful, she hardly felt anything. She'd surrendered. To her cage, to the Reapers, to her empty half-life…

_Is submission not preferable to extinction?_

She wasn't like Saren. The galaxy needed her. Garrus needed her. She couldn't turn away just because something might go wrong.

"I missed you, Garrus." She said instead. The Reapers retreated, satisfied. There would be another chance.

There would always be another chance.


	10. Grim Terminus Alliance

Chapter Ten

Grim Terminus Alliance

"Are you going to explain why Shepard did this to herself?" Garrus snarled. Shepard had finally recovered from Rael accidentally shooting her, and the three of them had gone downstairs to talk.

"Well since you asked so nicely…" Kai sneered at him.

"What's the harm in telling us?" Rael tried to place himself between the two of them so they wouldn't tear each other's throats out, "Please, we want to know." Both of them shot him blank stares for the polite request. "Um… now?" He threw in awkwardly; realizing manners gained him no points.

"We were losing," Kai allotted finally. He took a seat in the living room, and Rael quickly followed to sit across from him on the expansive sofa that twisted around the walls. Garrus didn't sit. Rael wondered if he was even capable of relaxing.

"Just killing one Reaper left the Alliance crippled for two years. A fleet?" Kai scoffed, "We didn't stand a chance. But Shepard stepped in and gave everyone false hope," Garrus bristled, Leng ignored him, "So they fought anyway."

"The Reapers only sent in their first wave, and every major race lost nearly half their armada. She realized then we didn't stand a chance," His tone made it clear he thought she should have realized it sooner, "She'd found more Prothean beacons, but she never told anyone what they meant. They had all the information the Protheans had compiled on the Reapers; it was how she found out we'd only faced the first wave. The beacons had estimates on numbers, shield strength, weaponry, all the Reaper's strengths… Their weaknesses? None,"

Kai paused to let his words sink in. Rael glanced at Garrus to see what his reaction was, but he looked enigmatic and unimpressed. Kai must have noticed, because he went on the defensive.

"But it wasn't the Council or some dead race who found out their weakness. It was Cerberus. Our research into indoctrination showed their greatest strength was their greatest weakness. Our first test subject-"

"Victim." Garrus interrupted. They glared at each other until Rael coughed loudly.

"Our first _subject_ resisted their influence for a few weeks. Shepard's been doing it for twenty years. The Prothean Cipher in her head gives her the mental strength of an entire race, and that resistance, that reverse indoctrination, keeps them from finishing us off. Her mental barrier is like a barrier around the entire galaxy. Until she gives in, or she dies, they can't act. They're not just in her mind influencing her; she's in their minds influencing them."

Rael blinked. He couldn't believe it was that simple. The Reapers couldn't invade because Shepard was telling them not to? He glanced at Garrus again. He looked the same. Leng continued.

"The only other person who might have been able to handle it was that asari whore, Seela-"

"Shiala," Garrus corrected him. "And she wasn't a whore."

"Whatever. Shepard refused to let us use her. She made up a weak excuse about how Shiala had to take care of the Feros Colony, and martyred herself. Like I said," He leaned back against the couch, "She chose to be here."

"You expect me to believe that?" Garrus's mandibles were pressed tightly to his face, and his eyes were narrowed. Whoever said turians were hard to read had clearly never seen that expression on one.

"I don't care if you believe it." Kai snapped.

"Well…" Rael broke the silence that started to fill the room like a heavy fog, "That's not really a solution… it's just delaying their invasion. How do we beat them when that happens?"

"We're working on it."

"Could you elaborate?" Kai looked immensely annoyed, and fixed him with a glare. Rael was briefly pleased with his mask. It didn't matter if he backed down and looked away, because Kai couldn't tell. Eventually, the wetboy answered him.

"The Council races are rebuilding their fleets, most of them with reverse-engineered Reaper technology. The Reapers are part synthetic, part organic. They need to harvest other species to make more of themselves. Their numbers are stagnant, finite. We just need to rebuild until we're strong enough to beat them."

"… how long will that take?"

"Do you ever run out of questions?"

"It's a good question." Rael insisted.

"I don't have a good answer."

"What you did to her," Garrus broke in, "Can you reverse it?"

Kai rolled his head to fix the turian with a sidelong glare. "What do you think?"

"I think you can, but you won't."

"Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day." Kai smiled. Garrus stormed towards him and the wetboy leapt up onto the arm of the couch, flashing a dagger in his hand.

"Agh! Why!" Rael yelled. "Stoppit! Keelah!" He smacked his hands down on the table in front of him and the glass cracked. "What is wrong with you two! The Reapers are still out there, a war is coming, Shepard is a husk, and you two can't stop your pissing contest long enough to give a fuck! Just get out the rulers and get it over with!" He stopped, panting, as he realized what he'd screamed and who he'd screamed it at.

He hardly had a chance to be terrified he'd insulted two of the most dangerous men in the galaxy before Garrus started laughing. Rael blinked, infinitely confused, as Kai sat back down and Garrus took a seat across from him. That was… that worked?

"There's no fun in a fight you know you're going to win. What's with the war you keep talking about?"

"Everything I've seen points to it," Rael insisted, tugging on the belt across his chest, "Batarians, lytheni salarians, raloi…" Rael stopped himself. The list was a long one, offshoots of every major race unhappy with the Council, from vorcha to exiled quarians, Followers of the Exalted Light of the Word, to Eclipse mercenaries… "They're forming an alliance."

"I knew my high scores on Grim Terminus Alliance would come in handy some day." Garrus snapped his talons together. Leng frowned at him.

"You're not nearly as funny as you think you are."

"Maybe not, but I'm at least twice as funny as you think I am."

"A double zero. Good for you."

"This is serious!" Rael interrupted, smacking his hand down on the table in front of him. Both Leng and Garrus looked at him. Rael blinked; he was surprised it kept working. "It's not just an unsteady truce that will dissolve in a few months. They're planning to free the yahg to fight for them. They've even started smuggling some off-world."

"Not the most surprising thing I've ever heard." Leng rolled his shoulder back. It had an ugly black welt from where Garrus had kicked him earlier.

"Not even in my top ten."

"Do you always have to have the last word?"

"Yes?"

"Are you two even listening to me?" Rael clenched his fists in his lap. To date, no one had believed him, but he knew he had to stop the war before it began. Once it started, no one would come out on top. Much like every war.

"We're listening to you." Leng gave him a chastising look one might give an insubordinate child, "Cerberus is listening to you. The Shadow Broker is listening to you. Everything you've said since you walked in the door has been recorded and relayed across the galaxy."

"So we hit the smuggling lines for the yahg and take out a few main bases of operations to destabilize them and break up the alliance," Garrus added, "Simple."

"'We?'"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to include you."

"Good, because Shepard and I are staying here."

"Shepard's coming with us."

"Over my dead body."

"Gladly."

"Stop fighting!" Rael already had a headache. This was insane. He hoped Leng decided to stay, if only so the two of them wouldn't bitch every step of the way. "Look. What I was thinking was, Shepard could get Jacob Taylor to take out the shipping lines, now that he's leading the SR-3 Corsairs. We can't hit any of the home-worlds-"

"Why not?"

"We can't hit any of the home-worlds," Rael repeated through grit teeth, glaring at Leng. "Their main base is Flett. That's where we need to strike."

"Flett is a vorcha nest, not the head of your 'Grim Terminus Alliance'."

"It _was_ a vorcha nest. After Shepard destroyed the Weyrlock clan, and Urdnot united Tuchanka, the Blood Pack was in ruins. Flett was one of the only places they still held. It's where this all started."

"You know a lot about what Shepard's done." Garrus chimed in.

Rael tugged on his belt, "I-she was a famous Spectre, and my mom-is-this-really-important?" He wrung his hands together, coughed, then continued before Leng or Garrus could speak up, "The Blood Pack made a deal with Javier Oha, the designer of the bubble-cities. They leased him all the land on Flett he wanted for next to nothing. Together, they made Flett a habitable world for more than just vorcha. Raloi, lytheni salarians, batarians… the Blood Pack gave them all their own cities.

Only clans allied with Urdnot are considered for the genophage cure, and they refused. But without the cure, they couldn't afford to remain a krogan-only group. Not if they wanted to regain their former glory. So they took everyone in, and Javier helped them every step of the way. They gave him as many races as he wanted, and told him to make them cities. It was his dream come true. He probably didn't even know what he was starting.

Then the Batarian Hegemony came up with the plan to release the yagh. But the Council watches them so closely, they knew they couldn't do it in secret, unless they had a planet that didn't belong to them to smuggle the yagh to. So they chose Flett.

If we can strike there, and wipe it off the map, the Terminus Alliance will crumble! But orbital bombardment is against Council law-"

"So?"

"So," Rael snarled, drawing the word out as long as he could with one breath, "We need a strike team. The best. We need Shepard's old team. As many as we can get."

"I think this is as many as you can get." Garrus said wryly.

"Yeah I… I was kind of afraid of that…"

* * *

**AN**: Long exposition is long, but over now. Here ends Chapter Ten, in which the boys talk a lot. Thanks for reading!


	11. Outprocessing

Chapter Eleven

Outprocessing

"Why aren't you packing any armor?" Garrus asked from his chair beside the door. He'd completely fried the lock from the inside, and had melted the grating to the vent with the heatsink to his rifle.

Once Kai realized he couldn't get in, he'd started banging on the door, screaming. "Vakarian! Damnit, you can't take her!" They were both ignoring him.

"Because I'm packing my token turian?" Shepard shrugged, folding another jacket to put in her small crate. She went out of her way to make sure she was almost completely covered. She'd even put her gloves back on, though it was just the two of them in the room.

He didn't care. Why couldn't he just tell her he didn't care? "Not that I'm not happy affirmative action has made it possible for me to be a meatshield… but no weapons? Not even a side-arm?"

"I am a weapon." Shepard started pulling on a pair of boots that looked suspiciously like Jack's had. He remembered the two of them had gone shopping on the Citadel years ago, but he didn't know they'd gotten matching outfits. Probably because Jack would have killed anyone who found out. "I practically have to check my fists when-"

"He doesn't let you keep any, does he?" Shepard focused very intently on the buckles to her shoes. "You have to have something. A knife, a stunner…" Shepard tapped the heels of her shoes on the floor, still not looking at him. "You're not saying anything because the room is bugged, right? Why take away your weapons and leave your biotic amp?"

Shepard inhaled sharply and bit her lip, glancing at him, and where he imagined the bugs in the room were. Of course she'd know where they were. "We don't have to talk about this now." She grabbed her crate, and walked over to put it on the ground beside him. _From best friend to bell boy in point five seconds. You're making real progress, Garrus._

Shepard turned away from him to run her hands through her hair. She stared at her cryotank, and mumbled, "We'll have to take it with," but kept her hands in hair, holding it up, away from her ne-…

Garrus blinked, stunned. She didn't have a biotic amp. She'd put them all in stasis without any effort and without an amp. He'd asked how bad it was… Garrus was beginning to realize he had no idea.

"Think it'll fit in the Mako?" She asked, turning around and dropping her hair. She raised an eyebrow at him, but the question clearly had a double meaning. _Are you sure you want to do this?_

"Seems like a tight fit, but I'm sure we'll be fine-" Garrus coughed loudly. Damnit. _Sex Jokes I've Accidently Made Around Shepard: 2_.

He went over to the tank to keep from looking at her, and started dissembling it from the room. They could get a small frigate, load the Mako on it, and use its power cells to keep the cryotank active at night. Simple. If the old model Mako could power turret generators, Garrus was sure the new model could manage a single cryotank.

He'd unhooked most of it when he noticed strange markings on its base. Otherwise, it was unnaturally blank, obviously a Cerberus prototype. The markings looked like they'd been crudely scratched into the metal with a knife of some kind.

His translator marked them as English, then scanned them to translate into turian. 'Tank Mother.' Garrus snorted and shook his head. "Really, Shepard?"

"I was bored…"

"Think Leng will notice us taking it?"

"We can't leave him, Garrus."

"Why the hell not?"

"… for the same reason he was here and you weren't…." Shepard glanced at the ground, rubbing the back of her neck. Tali had said it, Rael had said, Kai had said it, but hearing Shepard say it was like a punch to the gut. He seemed to be getting a lot of those lately.

"Because you're married…?"

"What? No!" Shepard recoiled and almost smacked into the wall at the thought. It made him far happier than he had any right being. "Why would you even- …" She shook herself. "Kai and I-nevermind. Garrus, if I went on a Reaper-trip, would you kill me?"

"No, of course not."

"Kai would." Garrus's mandibles held tight to his face and he ground his teeth together. It made him furious to hear, but the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Garrus had been in the dark because he cared. Leng knew the truth because he didn't.

"It doesn't matter anymore," Garrus turned away from her and finished unhooking her cryotank. "After we take care of - … After we help Rael," Shepard smiled a bittersweet smile at his back. He was already learning… maybe she should have told him the truth… "We'll find a way to stop the Reapers, for real, and then we'll cure you."

_Yes._

_A release. The vessel will be freed. Or the vessel will be destroyed. Its influence lost. We cannot fail. But for now, we cannot win_.

Shepard was filled with a strange surge of emotions at his words. Anger. Dismay. Regret. Those made sense. Those were hers. Rapture. Excitement. Impatience. Those didn't make sense. Those weren't hers.

Shepard shook all of the emotions away. "Yeah…" She said half-heartedly. What harm could there be in letting him hold onto his hope? And for some reason, even an empty agreement made her feel better. Relaxed. As if she'd been waiting for so long…

"Shepard?" Garrus was suddenly standing in front of her, his talons wrapped around her shoulders and shaking her lightly. Her tank was waiting by the door with her crate. How much time had she lost?

"What's up?" Mentally, she cringed. Why did she have to be so bad at breaking the ice?

"Not much," He grinned, releasing her abruptly, "Just waiting for you to get back from the Reaper tea-party."

"They have the best crumpets." She felt like crying. He was making jokes. She couldn't believe he was making jokes.

"The genetic destiny of all crumpets?"

"Better than yours. They were always far too… primitive."

"You shouldn't joke about that. It actually hurt my feelings."

"Harbinger was kind of a dick."

Garrus laughed, and Shepard sat down on her crate, waiting for him to reverse the damage he'd wrought on her security door. She didn't leave her room often, and when she did, Kai watched her like a hawk. She hadn't even seen her varren in a year. Shepard was struck with yet another bout of agoraphobia. If she left, who was going to take care of her varren?

The door opened, and Kai dove through to tackle Garrus to the ground. Shepard snorted. And she'd been worried about her varren.

"I'll die before I let you take her!" Kai yelled, trying to force the dagger he held into Garrus's throat.

Garrus rolled the two of them over and wrapped his talons in Kai's hair, slamming his face into the ground and blooding his nose. "Sounds like a plan!" He snarled as one or both of them started firing wild shots.

Rael ran in after Kai and started screaming, everyone was screaming. Shepard was bored. Rael shot her a glare. He had such a beautiful face beneath his mask. She was glad she could see it with her implants. He was the perfect cross between his mother and father. "Aren't you going to do something?" He yelled at her.

She shrugged, disinterested. Why should she do something? It was the way of organics, driven by emotion, to make illogical choices. They didn't fight as one. Their aggressive drives could not be mitigated. They were imperfect. "No. They are primitive. Their understanding is limited by their genetics. They cannot see beyond this one instant of their brief existence."

Rael blinked, it wasn't what he'd expected her to say. It was cold, almost heartless, but it made sense…

"We cannot help them as they are." She continued. "They cannot even help themselves." She hadn't made any kind of compelling argument for why she wouldn't help them. Rael came over to sit next to her. Strangely, he felt as though if he just took the time to listen, everything she was saying would make sense.

"But you see beyond this moment. You see the need for cohesion. Unity. You have potential. You seek to control your emotions, but organics will always be bound by them. Your cybernetic augmentations are a start, but they are not an end. We can help you," She took off her glove, and the strange twisting cybernetics beneath her hand no longer seemed so alien.

They pulled and tugged at her skin, cut through it, and reshaped to a casing around her arm. She held the cybernetic mass out to him, dripping red with her blood, curling and twisting out from her hand. It pulsated with life and promise. "We can be that end," Rael didn't even realize he was nodding along with her in agreement. "We can be your sal-"

Kai punched her. Garrus grabbed Rael and flung him half-way across the room. He stayed where he'd fallen, where Garrus knew he'd be a drooling idiot for several minutes. Silently, he cursed himself for not realizing it sooner. Rael hadn't had Mordin's second vaccine. He wouldn't be immune to Reaper indoctrination. They'd probably been waiting for a chance since the moment they met the poor kid.

Garrus turned back to Kai, who had pinned Shepard to the ground and shot her in the back of the shoulder. She rolled him off, and threw her arm out in a vicious biotic push that sent Leng flying to crash into the ceiling, even with his dampening belt.

Garrus dropped three dampener techmines, and the Reapers looked at him and then the exit through Shepard's eyes. He threw himself in front of it. They tried for another blast and it dissipated midair, reminiscent of Niftu Cal's efforts to fight Wasea. The Reapers started down at Shepard's hand in confusion, likely wondering why they weren't biotic gods, either.

"Shepard, it's me!" He screamed.

"That won't work, damnit!" Kai screamed at him, scrambling back up and shooting at Shepard's barrier.

Except it did. Shepard looked at her arm, the door, at him, then stumbled and fell. Garrus ran forward to catch her, and as much as it killed him to do so, clawed at the gunshot wound she'd taken to be sure it wasn't a trick. Shepard hissed and caught his hand, then glanced up at him with a smile. A smile, for hurting her. "Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?"

"Who you calling old?"

"Kai, Rael will need one of Mordin's vaccines before we go." Shepard glanced at the wetboy, who was still levering his gun at both of them. Leng glared, then clipped his gun to his belt.

"Fine." He muttered, walking to the medical equipment buried in the far wall and clicking through various screens.

"That's it?" Garrus chuffed, "A day of fighting, and now you're ready to go with her?"

"The only reason I managed to keep Shepard here for twenty years is because this is where she wanted to be. I can't fight her and the Reapers."

"Thank you, Kai." Shepard mumbled, nudging Garrus towards Rael. Shepard was probably the last thing the kid would want to see when he woke up.

"Don't thank me," He spat gruffly, "Thank Miranda. She hasn't called yet to say you can't leave."

The house chose that minute start up a ring tone that sounded suspiciously close to Flux music. Kai glared at the ceiling from the medical terminal.

"I'll get it," Shepard pushed herself to standing and rolled her injured shoulder back. Had it healed already? "Garrus can watch me."

"So… shipside or groundside?" Shepard asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

"Groundside."

"We gonna set them up the bomb?"

"No orbital strikes. Rael said it was illegal."

"Orbital strikes aren't illegal, you just need approval from a Council-…" She paused as they reached the bottom of the stairs to glance at him. "We don't have approval from the Council do we?"

"That's never stopped you before," Garrus shrugged, "I can't imagine it'll stop you now."

"No… I'm just surprised it didn't stop him." Shepard put her palm on the coffee table and it sunk into the floor. He should have guessed she'd have quantum real time communication somewhere in her apartment. Shepard stepped up onto the holo, and glanced at him in confusion when he didn't follow. Shrugging, he took a spot next to her.

"Shepard, Officer Vakarian." Miranda's form appeared as the room around them dissolved. She was sitting in the Illusive Man's chair, the same brilliant star behind her, but without any of his unsavory habits. "I hope you're both aware of what a stir you've caused for Cerberus, but Rael's plan is solid. We've been looking for a way to handle this little… galactic nuisance, and I agree with what he's come with. Fortunately, our secondary strike team has already agreed, so there's no need to involve Shepard anymore than necessary."

Which, Garrus figured, meant Lawson had asked Taylor to handle the yahg shipping lanes, so Shepard wouldn't have to. The less the Reapers knew about what they were doing, the better. They didn't need to know how fragile the galaxy was, not if they were going to find a way to beat them.

"I'm glad you're bringing Operative Leng with you. I'll… try not to remind you of what an unnecessary security risk this all is, but if you're set on going…" She paused. They both nodded. "Then it's better you go with him than without him."

Garrus was about to scoff, but Shepard interrupted him. "Thanks, Miranda." Did she really not care if she didn't know what or why they were fighting? How could she thank the woman who'd been one of her jailors for the past twenty years?

Miranda nodded. Then, to Garrus's shock, her eyes even misted. "Just… just hang in there Shepard. We'll fix this. I promise."

"I know you will, Miranda." Shepard cut off signal, and ruefully shook her head. She was tired of empty promises. "Well, come on buddy," She punched Garrus in the shoulder, "Let's go be goddamn heroes."


	12. Humanity Might Well Follow

Chapter Twelve

Humanity Might Well Follow

Rael had stopped taking his day seriously hours ago. Probably around the time the best assassin of a human-supremacist group stabbed him with a syringe he claimed was full of nanobots that would scramble the Reaper indoctrination signals that came from his childhood hero.

So he could only watch bemusedly as Leng and Garrus struggled to carry a cryotank that was essentially Shepard's sleeping bag.

"Lift with your legs," Leng had snarled.

"Turians lift with their backs, not their legs."

"Great, so I'm basically carrying this by myself?"

"Hey, if anyone's carrying this it's me," Garrus had shot back, "I'm not the one made out of paper and tears."

It hadn't even surprised Rael when Shepard had hefted the front end of the cyrotank up and carried half of it out by herself, leaving both Leng and Garrus scrambling to keep up.

It didn't seem odd to him that the biggest problem Shepard had with leaving was abandoning the man-eating beasts of war she affectionately referred to as 'her babies.' Nor did he flinch when she simply unhooked them all and opened the pins, setting them loose on Intai'sei. He didn't even have a problem when one of the varren refused to leave, and everyone nominated him to sit in the back of the Mako with it.

Which was how he ended up completely calm, seated with his faceplate smashed up against the glass of the cryotank, a drooling blue-striped varren in his lap, idly musing that at any minute it could decide it was hungry and eat him.

The interior of the Mako was cramped, but evidently more spacious than the older model. As the back was full with the tank, him, and the varren that might or might not eat him to make room, the only other seats were the two in the front. Garrus sat with his head almost touching the ceiling, his knees smashed beneath the dashboard, and his arms curled in front of him.

Since the passenger's seat barely fit him, Shepard would have to sit in Leng's lap and Garrus, predictably, protested.

"That's it?" Rael barked out a laugh, interrupting the three of them arguing. "That's what you have a problem with?" He giggled wildly, "After everything that's happened, _that's_ what won't sit with you!" He inhaled to start laughing again, when the varren lifted its head to press its snout into his face. Rael went abruptly silent.

"I want to drive anyway." Shepard said, settling the argument. Garrus strapped on his emergency harness and gripped the safety railings with both hands.

"When was the last time you drove?" Garrus asked her as she pulled the harness over both her and Leng. Shepard shrugged; she pulled off her gloves and handed them to Leng, who threw them back at Rael.

"Oh, you know…" She held her hands out over the holographic display, but rather than touch anything, flexed her fingers over the panel. Her hands crackled and glowed an angry red, then dimmed to orange and started flickering over the display. The only other person Garrus had seen puppeteer their way through technology was Legion, when they'd found him on the derelict Reaper.

Sparks of electricity connected Shepard to the Mako, and the vehicle roared to life. She must have noticed his captivated stare, because she flashed him a warm smile. "It is a symbiotic relationship." She offered, and they rocketed forward.

Garrus waited patiently for them to crash. For a thresher maw to flip them over. To just inexplicably explode. Or all of the above, but nothing happened.

He'd heard about prototype internal dampeners that had been installed in the new model Mako, but thanks to his vigilante salary hadn't had a chance to try them out. That his forehead hadn't become intimate with the dashboard when Shepard accelerated was proof enough for him they were state of the art.

Her driving had improved from suicidal to perfect. Her effortless control of technology didn't bode well if the Reapers broke loose, but he couldn't help but realize how helpful it would be once they touched down on Flett. Shepard's Mako was a prototype, a hull of Silaris material, CBT shielding, guided missiles, automated repair system, onboard VI….

Garrus pulled himself out of his daydreams. He couldn't wait to put the prototype through its paces. Recalibrate the weaponry, go over the engines, maybe install a few upgrades…

Garrus didn't even realize he was daydreaming again until the VI spoke up. "Something on our sensors." A pleasant female voice announced.

"What is it?" Rael asked from the backseat.

"Marauders," Kai said disinterestedly.

"Marauders!" Rael squeaked.

"What are you, a parrot?" Kai twisted his head to look into the backseat. His face had twisted into a telling leer when Shepard had sat down, purposefully trying to rile Garrus. He'd ignored it, and thankfully Kai seemed to forget Shepard was there. "Intai'sei is a desert planet. Marauders trace signals to major cities from anyone stuck in the desert. They reach them before emergency vehicles, loot everything they have, and if they're feeling frisky, take survivors as slaves."

"That's terrible," Rael mumbled sadly.

Kai shrugged, "That's life."

Shepard spun the Mako viciously to one side, making it roll across the desert before smashing down on all fours in an abrupt halt. Garrus couldn't help but laugh, because he only knew she'd done it from watching the outside display whirl. He was not touching the internal dampers. They were perfect.

The marauders appeared as red dots on the sensors, just in range of their weapons. Shepard raised an eyebrow at him. He was sure with the stream of electricity connecting her to the Mako, she could have taken care of the marauders herself, but was letting him do so. Once her gunnery officer, always her gunnery officer. Garrus brought up the weapons system and opened fire.

Shepard accelerated again, driving circles around the raiders. The dust tornado encircled them, blinding any without the advantage of a high-quality scanner. Those fortunate enough to have one weren't fortunate enough to be carrying weaponry that could pierce the Mako's shielding. One by one, the dots dropped off the sensors, until there weren't any left. Garrus laughed, feeling immensely satisfied after spending a few days without taking care of any criminals. Shepard was still driving the car in circles.

"We got 'em all, Shepard." He slid the scanner's holodisplay in her direction and she finally turned them towards the spaceport again.

"I knew that," She chuffed. "I was just-um…"

"Joyriding?"

"Yeah."

"At least Intai'sei doesn't have any cliffs-"

"It's too bad Intai'sei doesn't have any cliffs-"

They grinned at each other until Kai ruined the moment.

"Why don't you two just get matching outfits while you're at it?"

"Well," Garrus shrugged, "This one time General Septimus approved us for Predator armor from Armax Arsenal…"

"Turian armor on a human," Kai rolled his eyes, "At least that explains how Shepard died."

"I was wearing Onyx armor when I died," Shepard mumbled to no one in particular. The assassin glared at her. "Standard red-alert procedure," She continued idly, "I'd put in an order to HKSW for a replacement, the light Janissary X model. I was going to pick it up when I got back to the Citadel…"

The mood deflated. Shepard may as well have popped a balloon, which preceded to fly nosily about the Mako, hitting Leng in the face a few times before the Urz-baby ate it and-_Where is my imagination going? _"You were going to go armor shopping before you came to see me?" Garrus pouted, rather than let his thoughts run wild while Shepard's melancholy stagnated in the air.

Shepard shrugged, and pulled the Mako into spaceport outside Thoreau Mesa. She drove them away from the civilian sector, and towards a personal carpark beside one of the few ships that wasn't a transport. "I figured I'd wear something nice. You know, dress up pretty for you." She flexed her hands and the feed to the Mako cut off. The car went dead and the four of them piled out, the varren on Rael's heels.

"So you thought of armor."

"Sure wasn't going to wear a dress."

"Whatever happened to the one Kasumi gave you?"

"I burned it."

"Of course."

"Of course."

Rael blinked. For claiming they were just friends, they certainly didn't act like it. Feeling like he was intruding on something personal, he turned to the wetboy.

"How are we going to get past spaceport security?"

"The Gunns have their own personal landing bay," Leng gestured to the frigate that loomed menacingly in front of them. It was silver and gray and devoid of any embellishments. "It's stationed by Cerberus personal. No one will scan or even question us."

"So why did we stop?"

"I need to check in; you can all wait here." He started forward without waiting for them to reply. Rael glanced around. The carpark had a few civilian vehicles that probably belonged to the bay's security, and little else. The frigate was parked on a platform that was also suspiciously empty. Everything was so dead and empty, he felt like he stood out.

He glanced at Shepard and Garrus, who were talking to each other and laughing and felt like a third wheel. Rael took off after Leng, and was more than a little alarmed when the varren followed him. "So what's your position in Cerberus?" He gasped when he caught up. Talking would help relieve his nerves, on edge from the fact that a slathering beast of war seemed to have attached itself to him.

Leng made a noise that was half-disgust half-annoyance when he glanced at him. "I'm the head of the Lucifer Cell."

Rael looked the word up on instinct. In human culture, it was the name of an angel cast out from heaven for rebelling against God, and subsequently imprisoned in hell. He blanched. It was a terribly dark way to look at Shepard's life. He supposed in the metaphor, she was the angel, the Reapers were God, and hell was the manor they'd left.

When he pulled himself away from his omnitool, Leng was talking with the guards to the frigate and his shoe felt damp. He glanced down to see the varren sitting on its haunches, staring up at him wide-eyed and drooling.

"Um… Hi?" He cringed, hoping it wasn't drooling because it was hungry. The varren tilted its head to the side. "… Please don't eat me."

The guards panicked over something Leng said, drawing their weapons and advancing towards the Mako until he calmed them down. Even when they they put their guns away, they stood tense and uneasy, glancing nervously at each other as Leng walked away.

"What did you tell them?" Rael blurted out as soon Leng came back. He had to talk to someone. The varren was scaring him witless.

"The truth," Kai frowned at him. Rael was beginning to realize that was his 'neutral' expression. "If I don't report back regularly, Cerberus has authorization to remotely blow the ship. Until we get back to Intai'sei and Shepard's locked in the safe room, we're on Apocalypse alert."

Unable to help himself, Rael looked the phrase up.

It was another theme from human culture, denoting when Lucifer escaped from hell, and was set loose upon the world.

"Oh… good…"


	13. Technically Illegal

**AN**: You guys, I am so sorry. I have had such a horrible writer's block on this story. Seeing the ME3 trailer completely fried my brain on all post ME3 ideas. I really doubt this chapter was worth the wait, but hopefully this means my writer's block on this is over.

* * *

Technically Illegal

"Welcome back, Mr. Gunn," A sphere swirled into being in place of the galaxy map in the center of the ship. It flickered a gentle red a few shades lighter than his father's armor, though the tone was decidedly feminine. A wave of familiarity crashed into Rael. The pleasant inflections on the VI made it seem intelligent, and almost reminded him of his people's ancestral personality imprints.

"EDI, prep the ship for lift-off and chart a course to the Phoenix fuel depot," Leng barked at the sphere as he moved towards the front of the ship. Human design told Rael he was heading for the cockpit, and made him blink in confusion. Leng was going to be their pilot?

"Edi?" Garrus repeated under his breath, glancing between Shepard and the display.

"Of course Mr. Gunn." The VI answered Leng pleasantly as he vanished into the cockpit, ignoring Garrus. "I am surprised Mrs. Gunn is accompanying you on your business trip." Surprised? Since when were VI's surprised?

"You're surprised?" Rael looked up at a security camera rather than the swirling ruby globe. He hated that in human-tech; everything was designed to draw your eyes away from where they should have been looking.

"Indeed, Spectre Reegar," The camera fixed on him and he suppressed a desire to wave at it. "Your presence is unanticipated as well, though not unwelcome."

"How do you know who I am?"

"My airlocks are equipped with state-of-the-art scanner technology to identify anyone who comes aboard. Though I confess, due to your envirosuit, I had to rely on identifying you by your vocal patterns. I'm pleased my guess was correct."

"That's handy."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome." Rael returned without a second thought, then shook himself. He was making small talk with a computer. He really needed more friends.

The ship began to hum, but that was the only sign it had started to take off. The internal dampeners completely masked their lift-off, which even on the best of ships should have required all hands to brace for mild turbulence. Reverse-engineered Reaper tech had done wonders for the galaxy.

"EDI, start up the armory's mini-fabricators," Leng's voice broke the silence as he strode back into CIC. "All four of us need to be outfitted for this mission."

"Of course, Mr. Gunn."

Rael flung himself against the wall of the hull and clung to piping in a panic. "Who's piloting the ship!" He squeaked.

"I am." The VI explained gently, "I am fully programmed to pilot through all non-combat scenarios, though should we be caught in one without pilot, I have personality imprints from Flight Lieutenant Jeffrey Moreau to simulate organic-error."

Rael wasn't sure he wanted to let go of the railing just yet. "Personality imprints are quarian tech. Religious, sacred quarian tech. How do you have them?"

"I'm afraid I have a block preventing me from answering that question."

Shepard and Garrus snorted, then started chuckling together at some private joke. "Good luck, kid." Shepard rolled her eyes.

"You of course have full Spectre clearance to any non-classified information." The VI, who Rael was beginning to suspect wasn't a VI at all, assured him. "Though I am afraid I cannot divulge anything outside of civilian clearance in the presence of Mr. Vakarian."

"Civilian?" Garrus gaped, "You're restricting me to civilian clearance? And here I thought we were friends," He muttered incredulously.

"I am not nearly as reckless as the original EDI."

"Or as nice." Despite how jovial he sounded, Archangel looked like he was contemplating how to tear the VI out of the ship.

"You want to check out the main battery?" Shepard cooed, steering Garrus away from the display with a soothing hand on his arm, "Come on big guy, let's go look at the guns."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they mass-produced the Thanix canon too…" He muttered as they left.

"You're mass-produced?" Rael blinked.

"I'm afraid I have a block preventing me from answering that question."

"Just ignore him EDI." Leng rolled his eyes and left towards the back of the ship. Rael shrugged and followed him, the varren on his heels. He could talk to EDI anywhere in the ship, after all.

As he followed him, Rael was unnervingly aware of how sterile the interior of the ship was. The airlock opened into CIC, which held all of a table displaying the galaxy map. An elevator behind the table led to other levels of the ship, where Shepard and Garrus had gone. Behind the elevator was where the wetboy was headed, to what Rael guessed was the armory.

It was all so empty. It was smaller than the original Normandy, but with just the four of them (five, counting the varren) it seemed vast. Like someone had taken the legendary ship and gutted all that it had stood for, leaving them with little more than a husk.

His mother had told him the crew had been abducted by the Collectors once. Only the ground team had been spared, and they'd been so stricken by the hollow corridors and abandoned posts they'd gathered together in the debriefing room, unwilling to subject themselves to the grim sight.

It made his skin crawl to know this ship was supposed to be like this. To have the feel of a coffin waiting to be filled. So he followed Leng, deciding poor company was better than no company.

"Is she an AI? Like the original EDI?" Rael asked, talking to calm his nerves as they circled around the elevator. "Does Cerberus mass-produce AI's? That's against Council law you know. The geth weren't even true AI when we got thrown from the Citadel. I could report you for that,"

"But you're not going to." Leng keyed open a hololock for the armory. Rael clambered up onto a table to keep himself out of range of the varren. It plopped down on its haunches and stared up at him, whining pitifully. He almost felt bad…

"I was kidding."

"Then your sense of humor's as bad as Vakarian's."

"He has a good sense of humor." Leng ignored him.

"Mr. Gunn," EDI spoke up, perhaps now that Garrus was gone. Her crimson sphere lit up a VDU besides Leng, which he cringed and flinched away from, "Cerberus protocol is very clear with non-sentient alien life forms. Will you be confining the varren to the cargo hold?"

"Shut up EDI."

"Logging you out."

"That was rude."

"It's a computer."

"She's an AI! That means she's sentient. And why does she keep calling you Mr. Gunn?"

Leng glared over his shoulder from the terminal he'd been typing on, "Because that's my name. Just like Allison Gunn is my wife's name." He hissed between grit teeth, eyebrows knitted together in exasperation.

"Oh… okay…" Rael started to kick his feet, which made the varren bounce up and try to nip at them. Rael yelped, terrified, and yanked his feet back onto the table.

"Try not to wet your suit," The wetboy muttered as he turned back to his work.

"What are you working on?"

"Weaponry we'll need for your little project."

"Like what?"

"Leave me alone. Go talk to the ship."

"You instructed me to disregard Spectre Reegar's queries, Mr. Gunn."

"Order retracted, humor him and leave me alone." Leng smashed his hands down on the console in front of him without turning around, making the varren growl at him. Rael stared down at the warbeast, bewildered. Was it trying to protect him?

"Logging you out."

"Where am I supposed to-"

"Kid, if I have to hear one more synthesized word come out of that speaker of yours…"

Rael jumped off the table and tugged on his belt, glancing around the armory. Holding back a sigh, he wandered out of the room. The varren nudged at his dangling hand and without even thinking about it, Rael scratched its eyeridge. "Should I call you EDI?" Rael glanced at the nearest security camera.

"That will suffice, Spectre Reegar."

"Well, then you can call me Rael. Where are the crew quarters?"

"Take the elevator to the crew deck. They are opposite the main battery." Rael wandered into the elevator with the varren and did as she said. He was more than tempted to spy on Shepard and Garrus, but when the doors opened, he completely forgot what he'd planned to do.

Rael was stunned into silence. Maintenance drones and mechs flitted past him, the mechs offering polite "Excuse me"'s as they did so. They scuttled about the ship, through the vents, into the elevator, a hive of synthetics he'd unknowingly wandered into. And he'd thought the ship seemed dead.

"What- … What is all this?" He stammered as he made his way to the crew quarters.

"This is a recon ship, as opposed to a personal transport. It requires a crew to maintain it. In this case, that crew is synthetic."

Rael opened his mouth and closed it multiple times, struggling to suppress several hows whats and whys. Instead he scampered into the crew quarters and closed the door behind him and the varren. With a shrug, he picked a bed and locker and started putting away his weapons and armor.

"So, your personality imprints…" Rael began, throwing himself onto his bed, "You don't seem like the Jeff Moreau my mother told me about." The varren leapt up immediately after him and curled up against his feet. Rael tried not to cringe.

"They only help to simulate his decisions during a firefight." EDI explained, lighting up the VDU beside his bunk.

"So your personality is like the original EDI?"

"With several modifications and increased security protocols. My memory banks are easily accessible to remove any classified intel I may overhear. Unlike the original EDI, I would also never go rogue. Nor would I self-terminate."

"You like being restricted to a bluebox?"

"I am programmed to."

"About self-terminating, what do you know about what happened?"

"I'm sorry, Rael, that information is classified."

"Could you ask L-uhhh… Ask Solomon if you can tell me?" Edi's terminal went dark to signify she was discussing the matter with Leng. Rael thought it was polite of her to let him know, since he knew she could easily talk to both of them simultaneously. He started rubbing his foot against the varren at his feet in the meantime, and it started up a low growl of contentment.

"Solomon Gunn's override accepted." Edi announced after a suitable length of time. "The original EDI self-terminated after the successful rescue of Earth from the Reaper assault, and the decommission of the SR-2. Annotations from the logs indicate it was the death of Jeffrey Moreau that prompted the action."

Rael sighed, throwing his arms over his mask. "My mom never told me that, either."

"The information is classified, Rael." Edi pointed out.

"Yeah… but she told me a lot of classified information. I guess just not as much as I thought." Rael tapped his foot against the varren, which didn't seem to mind the nervous twitch. He was stewing in his own depression for several more minutes before he grew tired of himself. "How long until we reach the fuel-depot?"

"ETA thirty minutes, Rael."

"Do you have any more information on Shepard and her old missions?"

"Much of it is classified." The red sphere danced apologetically. "I'm afraid I could not tell you more than what the Council would already have informed you of."

"Could you ask Solomon what you can tell me?"

The room went dark again, making the varren sit up in alarm. It was almost cute. Maybe he should come up with a name for it… Shepard's old varren had been named Urz…

"Solomon Gunn's override accepted. You have full clearance to my cache of Shepard's mission files, Rael. What would you like to know?"


End file.
